All ten bills tabled in the House of Representatives by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Governance Edward Zammit Lewis were duly published. These ten bills concern the comprehensive institutional and constitutional reforms proposed by the Maltese government, following a structured dialogue with the Venice Commission. The legal texts are all fully in line with the final Opinion of the Venice Commission of June 2020.
Throughout the past days, Minister Edward Zammit Lewis conducted and concluded the debate within the House of Representatives, concerning the first set of four reforms out of the total ten bills tabled in Parliament.
The first set of reforms are now at committee stage of the Parliamentary legislative process. The first of these four bills, Bill 140 of 2020, concerns the appointment of the President of the Republic. The following two bills, Bill 141 and 142 of 2020, deal with the Judicial Appointments and Judicial discipline and removal respectively. All these three bills require two-thirds majority votes in Parliament. Bill 143 of 2020, which concerns the Permanent Commission Against Corruption, has already been discussed before the Permanent Committee for the Consideration of Bills.
Following this series of four bills, the remaining six bills deal with the strengthening of the institutions and public administration, namely:
- Office of the Attorney General;
- Office of the Ombudsman;
- Office of the Auditor General;
- Appointment of the Principle Permanent Secretary and the Permanent Secretaries;
- Appointment of persons in senior positions;
- Appointment of Persons of Trust.
Minister Edward Zammit Lewis declared that, while he remains open to any form of dialogue, he also reaffirmed his clear commitment to having all these bills passed without further delays, hopefully through Parliamentary unanimity. The Minister further stated that this is exactly the moment when all members of the House of Representatives can and should be on the right side of history. He noted that the government’s commitment in this respect was visibly valued during the negotiations that Prime Minister Robert Abela held within the European Council during the discussions of the Budget of the European Union for 2021 -2027.
In conclusion, the Minister is pleased to note that all the efforts of the Maltese government were fully recognised by the Council of Europe, by the European Commissioner for Justice and, moreover, by the President of the European Commission.
