Labour’s unequal approach to equality

How rich of Minister Helena Dalli to demand of church schools that they not employ teachers on the basis of their school’s ethos, when she employs an army of ‘persons of trust’ whose only qualification is political allegiance, whilst replacing a competent

But then, Labour’s whole approach to equality has been very unequal. While it gushes about its economic achievements, this government has presided over an increase in material disparity and people in poverty. The rich build high-rise towers in Paceville while the poor die homeless under a bridge. The rich are allowed to buy Maltese citizenship but the innocent children of the poor are deported.

Friends of the ruling clique rocket to the top, getting four promotions in four weeks, while others have to take on contracts of precarious jobs from which Labour’s privileged trade union makes thousands of euros. The Maltese employer struggles to retain the right and duty to employ on the basis of meritocracy whilst the Minister’s chief of staff endorses political discrimination in government departments.

While the Minister champions equality for minorities, Malta scrapes the bottom of EU countries, as confirmed by the World Economic Forum, in equality for women who constitute half of the population.

A veritable case of all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.

An uncontested concept and a controversial bill

Equality is an uncontested concept but the government’s recently proposed equality bill remains shrouded in controversy. The business community has forcefully lamented the fact that the proposed bill distorts the concept of equality to introduce new rights at the expense of the rights of other groups. Catholic schools have bemoaned the loss of religious liberty. Parents of children in church schools are concerned about freedom of choice, whilst liberals are concerned about elements of thought control in the proposed legislation.

The Nationalist Party places the person right at the centre of its political activity and as such is a Party that promotes equality and prohibits discrimination. In fact, it can take credit for quite a few pro-equality and anti-discrimination laws, including the creation of the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality, the setting up of the Ombudsman and the Equal Opportunities Act. From the Opposition benches, and under the leadership of Simon Busuttil, it has also supported all the recent provisions against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity. And it will have no problem with an Equality Act which consolidates these achievements and enhances equality and liberty rather than creating new forms of discrimination and repression.

The Nationalist Party has not yet taken a definite position about the Equality Bill, primarily because the government chose to publish only the title of the bill, and not the actual text, in spite of presenting its first reading in Parliament three weeks ago with the pomp of a press conference. Nonetheless, the Party is actively listening and contributing to the discussion.

An Equality Bill only for the privileged

In what seemed like an attempt to pre-empt the angels and their good tidings, Minister Helena Dalli called a press conference a few days before Christmas. “Peace on Earth and goodwill to all men” had to make way for the announcement of two forthcoming bills that will be the ‘jewels in the crown’ of Labour’s equality legislation.

At the time of writing this article, we commoners have not yet been allowed to feast our eyes on Dalli’s royal metaphor. The press conference was more of a scene-setter, implying that discrimination is rife – Church schools being singled out for special mention – and that an Equality Commission with extensive powers will be able to sort things out.

Minister - leave our kids alone

Despite ongoing discussions with the Church, the Ministry for Social Dialogue still decided to forge ahead with the proposals. I guess that wasn’t done with a heavy heart. The government is proposing to ban church schools from not hiring teachers on the basis of a lack of religious affiliation without any safeguards that the school can ensure that its ethos is followed by its employees even if these happen to be non-practicing Catholics or even religiously not affiliated.

As the Archbishop says: “The Church can be forced to employ educators who, for example, conduct public campaigns against some aspects of its teaching.” This is so because the proposed law goes even further than the requirements of EU Directives which, whilst establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment, nevertheless includes a specific provision regarding churches and other similar organisations.

The Church has argued that this encroaches on its religious freedom. But I would argue that the law also encroaches on parents’ freedom. Parents who send their children to Church schools in free countries such as ours not only do so of their own free will but because they believe it is in the best interests of their children to receive a holistic Christian education. And there is no reason to see anything wrong in this, just as there is no reason to see anything wrong in parents deciding to send their children to schools holding a different ethos, be they state, independent, Islamic or sports schools.

But government s discounting of Catholic education to solely religion classes is simply ridiculous. In that case, state and private schools can be considered as much. On the contrary, a Catholic education involves cross-curricular teaching. It is cade of nebulous and improbable definitions of offences and protected characteristics that will make it impossible for a targeted employer to escape an orchestrated persecution”.

The lack of legal clarity in the proposed bill, together with the shifting of the burden of proof, will now presume that anyone accused of discrimination is guilty rather than innocent, as is customary – even with cases involving serious crimes. There is not even the need for a specific complaint for the Commission to act – even if, with the new proposals, the Equality Commission will have the power to investigate, prosecute and decide matters. No wonder that the subjectivity allowed by the vagueness in definitions, together with the extensive power of the Commission, has alarmed employers.

Equality not uniformity

Probably the main contention over this bill is that at times it seems to confuse ‘equality’ with uniformity and ideological homogeneity at the expense of the diversity it should seek to protect. In so doing it threatens fundamental liberties such as freedom of thought and freedom of expression.

Some might argue that the only available version of an Equality Bill is simply ill-conceived and ill-drafted. And it might have been a case of publishing another rushed, unfinished and unpolished piece of legislation by the Equality Ministry. Suffice it to say that the recently introduced Gender Identity Bill had to be amended or supplemented some four times in a year.

But others do not accept claims of innocence. Rather, they sense an authoritarian streak wanting another go at social engineering through the diktat of the state, the same statism that has already failed miserably in installing uniformity in totalitarian states such as Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China.

These same people argue that anyone who speaks up against Labour’s radical wing risks being brutishly ostracised, as for ideological opponents they reserve Orwell’s two-minute hate. How could they think otherwise, when the same government that legislates in favour of the vilification of religion suggests imposing restrictions even on ‘an intention to offend’ which is, as argued elsewhere, by definition a thought crime of an Orwellian nature. This is the reason why what could definitely be a positive development in the equality body protecting liberty and diversity, is being made to look like a replica of the Committee of Public Safety in Revolutionary France, with people fearing an ensuing Reign of Terror.

Fashioned this way, the Equality Bill will be anything but liberal and progressive. I believe that there is still time to make something good out of the Bill – indeed, something for the common good. I hope that my plea does not fall on deaf ears.