A full-time Parliament
A recent social media spat between a politician and a pundit raised, once again, the omnipresent spectre of the conflict of politician holding day jobs in addition to their part-time job of running the country.
In case anyone needs reminding, Malta is run by a Parliament that works on a part-time basis even though the running of a country, irrespective of its size, really ought to be a full time vocation.
The only full-time politicians are member of the Cabinet of Ministers, the rest receive their parliamentary honoraria for what is essentially a job that, simplistically speaking, takes up a few hours on a few days a week.
We say ‘simplistically speaking’ because when it comes down to it, there is a lot more to being an MP than merely showing up at Parliament at the designated hours, casting your vote and sometimes making an intervention.
The hot potato has been ignored for years, by the people who make the laws themselves and who stand to be directly affected, but this just may be, one area in which the government and opposition finds themselves in agreement on what would be a quantum shift for the country – the creation of a full-time Parliament with full-time Members.
Editor’s pick
The only real, sure fire solution to preventing conflicts of interest between parliamentarians and their day jobs is to create a full-time Parliament composed of full-time parliamentarians.
The fact of the matter is that both sides of the House are populated by heavy contingents of lawyers, many of whom are among the leaders in their respective areas of practice. And while Parliament remains a part-time occupation, no lawyer-MP, for argument’s sake, can really be begrudged for taking on the country’s biggest businesses, at least those that are free of political controversy, as clients.
The Muscat government was the first to have made a move in the direction of a full-time Parliament when it commissioned a report that recommended a full-time Parliament way back in April 2013, a month after being first elected, that was drawn up by the Ombudsman, the Auditor General and the Electoral Commissioner in December of that same year, has recommended a full time Parliament.
It had also presented the option for MPs to choose between being full- or part-time parliamentarians.
Meanwhile, sometime in the last legislature, the Opposition too had, as part of its proposals for good governance, come up with the concept of giving MPs the option of choosing whether to be full-time or part-time MPs. That report had recommended that MPs’ salaries would almost triple from the current €20,000 a year to a full-time annual salary of €59,000, which would be halved if the proposal is not accepted and they remain parttime parliamentarians.
The report suggested that while a good salary should not be the motivation behind anyone’s desire to enter politics, those who go down this path usually sacrifice a great deal. Malta cannot afford to have underpaid politicians in view of the fact that many of them actually sacrifice their personal lives to enter politics. A decent salary, the report said, would also discourage the temptation of corruption.
Such a move has been on the cards for a long time now but both parties in Parliament appear to be rather reticent to go down that route, most likely for fear of losing some of their best people – the doctors and lawyers and other professionals who, when push comes to shove may very well choose their original, and better paid, vocation over their political calling.