AD to present judicial protest against PM, Opposition leader on electoral reform

Alternattiva Demokratika will today file a judicial protest against the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, the Speaker of the House and the Attorney General, claiming discrimination against third parties in Malta’s electoral law.

Specifically, the protest claims a discriminatory application of the restorative measure in Malta’s electoral law, which guarantees a proportional number of MPs for the party with the highest number of first preference votes, and which is only applicable where MPs from two parties are elected to parliament.

The Green party is calling on the two party leaders to amend the electoral law and remove this discrimination, and is expected to take the matter to court and seek judicial review of the alleged discriminatory clause.

“The present electoral system in Malta favours only the major parties, namely the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, because Article 52 of the Constitution provides a corrective mechanism for two parties that restores the proportionality between the number of votes cast and the number of elected MPs,” the judicial letter, signed by lawyer Claire Bonello, says.

The protest explains that this corrective measures takes place only when two parties are elected, and does not consider the possibility of another MP from another party being elected. “This is discriminatory towards parties such as the undersigned, since the system gives an advantage to the two major parties and puts the others at a disadvantage.”

AD say it has been campaigning for electoral reform since 1994 and has participated in numerous rounds of talks with the other parties. Electoral reform in Malta has stalled since the days of the Gonzi Commission over the issue of setting thresholds for the election of parties, and the issue of governability: ensuring the proportion of MPs elected reflect the number of votes won.

This specific aspect of the electoral system was addressed in 2007 when the PN and the PL abandoned tripartite talks, and together forged a corrective measure to notch up the number of MPs for the party that wins the most votes, to reflect the percentage of its vote count.

It was this measure that gave Lawrence Gonzi a one-seat majority in 2008, when he won a relative majority of just over 49%. Malta’s electoral law however allows for the highest number of seats to determine which party takes government in a situation where more than two parties are elected and no one has an absolute majority.

After the 2008 election, the Select Committee for the strengthening of democracy was appointed, with terms of reference that include electoral reform. AD said it presented its proposals to former Speaker Louis Galea.

However, they say in their judicial letter, there had been no reply from the Speaker on the electoral talks, and that only recently Labour had removed its MPs from the committee in the aftermath of the Delimara motion walkout.