The country’s stability and business
Business can flourish, grow and expand in any given country if there is stability.Entrepreneurs, whether they are local or coming from a foreign land, will only consider investing their money if that particular country offers peace of mind that their investment will not be money down the drain.
As in everything else, businesses can be successful or otherwise, but unless there is a solid basis on which to believe that a business can work out, nobody would take the risk.
Since the end of the Second World War in Malta, there have been times when there was instability in the country. The early 1980s, for example, were one long period of insecurity, with a government in place without having obtained the majority of votes, and with a climate of distress, violence and economic woes.
Thankfully, matters drastically changed from there onwards. Although we did have difficult times in the mid-1990s when Alfred Sant’s government collapsed and, later, when Lawrence Gonzi’s one-seat majority between 2008 and 2013 was constantly under pressure, the country more or less had a smooth running.
Robert Abela’s government has a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives, and there are no apparent threats. All government MPs are showing support to the Executive, and are toeing the party line without questioning, at least in public. So there are no risks to government stability from this point of view.
But a country’s stability is not only measured through parliamentary majority. It is also gauged by the way its institutions work, and when they don’t, then this is the first sign that something is wrong. When institutions appear to be serving the government, rather than the people, this is a cause for alarm.
That, then, we have a Prime Minister who badgers judges and magistrates every time he can is not something that can be ignored. Over the past year, Prime Minister Robert Abela has attacked the judiciary on more than one occasion. While this in itself is a sign of insecurity on the Prime Minister’s part, it is nonetheless an attempt to put pressure on judges and magistrates in their line of work.
What Abela said in Parliament in a debate on the hospitals’ deal, following the Court of Appeal’s judgment which confirmed an earlier ruling given in February, amounts to an attempt to destabilise the judiciary. Implying that judges and magistrates are not able to take unbiased decisions according to law is a very serious statement; and when it is the Prime Minister who is saying so inevitably carries more weight.
The Prime Minister’s intentions are clear, but the other side of the coin is that his words are a cause of concern and could create a kind of instability that Malta cannot afford. We are still on the way back from a pandemic that created havoc, and now we are facing two wars in Europe and the Middle East that both have an effect on the way the business world works.
The PM should not be the one adding more uncertainty.