Malta's parliament controversially approves constitutional amendments

The Opposition on Monday voted against a Bill to amend the Constitution, and hit out at the government for circumventing procedure to get the changes approved with a simple majority. The Bill was moved by Justice Minister Jonathan Attard and provides, among other things, for the appointment of a standards commissioner for the judiciary and an extension of the retirement age of judges. The minister said the Bill had been agreed with the association representing the judiciary. Nationalist MP Carm Mifsud Bonnici, for the Opposition, said in a statement before Monday’s vote that the Opposition wanted a comprehensive reform of the Constitution that would follow broad and effective consultation that involved civil society. The government, however, had gone ahead with a piecemeal amendment which did not have the Opposition’s support.  The government, he observed, had even changed the procedure of the House to get its amendments through. At the committee stage of the bill earlier this month,  the Opposition had protested that the government had shuffled some clauses of the bill, pulling them out of the sections of the constitution which required a two-thirds majority and putting them in sections that only needed a simple majority. That, it insisted, was unconstitutional and those clauses still needed a two-thirds majority to be changed.
Read the full article here: Times of Malta