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6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION 2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 6 APRIL 2025 Why changing the rules out of fear or arrogance is wrong Editorial THE 1986 song by Billy Ocean, When The Going Gets Tough, has an iconic refrain that has been adopted for various circumstances. The refrain goes: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Allow us poetic licence to adapt this refrain to reflect the forma mentis Prime Minister Robert Abela has been displaying of late: "When the go- ing gets tough, change the rules." This is exactly what Abela did with the magiste- rial inquiry reform that cleared all stages of parlia- ment last week. The reform was put forward after lawyer and former Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi filed a flurry of inquiry requests over the Christmas pe- riod requesting investigations into ministers Clint Camilleri and Silvio Schembri, among others. Abela accused Azzopardi of abusing the law to target public and elected officials in a bid to un- dermine the government and instructed his jus- tice minister to draft changes to the law. Lo and behold, within just three months and with no public consultation, Abela changed the rules to make it next to impossible for an ordinary citizen to request a magisterial inquiry by directly petitioning the magistrate. A right enjoyed by ordinary citizens until Wednesday morning of last week was effective- ly struck down on Wednesday evening on the strength of government's parliamentary majority. The game got tough and Abela opted to change the rules. But this was not the only instance in which Abela decided to take a leaf out of an autocrat's handbook. He is doing it with the declaration of assets of his ministers – the Prime Minister has consistently refused to publish them, claiming that a more comprehensive system that applies to all MPs and not just ministers is required. In the meantime, his ministers' declarations remain hid- den from the public. Furthermore, a decision published by the Stand- ards Commissioner last week on a 2023 complaint filed by Momentum Chairperson Arnold Cassola over comments Abela had made when the driving licence scandal was exposed, revealed yet another instance in which the Prime Minister threatened to change the rules of the game. The complaint concerned Abela's then defence of his ministers and government customer care officials, who were revealed as having put pres- sure on Transport Malta officials to allow select individuals pass their driving tests. Cassola had argued the comments constituted a defence of cli- entelism. But while the Standards Commissioner cleared Abela of an ethics breach, a letter attached to the report revealed the Prime Minister's allergy to- wards his critics. In a letter to the Standards Commissioner, Abe- la warned that he would change the Standards in Public Life Act because of what he claimed were "frivolous complaints" filed to the office by people like Cassola. In the letter, Abela said he was concerned that the Standards Act was being abused by Cassola. "It is abundantly clear that a plurality of frivolous complaints are being submitted because, at pres- ent, the law does not impose sanctions," he said. Abela's solution to this claimed 'abuse' was to change the law: "I understand that if such abuse continues, the remedy must be legislative." It was the same argument Abela used more than a year later to justify reforming the law on magis- terial inquiries because of Jason Azzopardi's over- zealousness. The 2023 letter indicates that Abela felt similarly towards Cassola, who frequently files requests to the standards commissioner on potential ethics breaches by ministers and MPs. And the contempt could not be clearer: "It is very clear that, for the complainant [Cassola] – who has consistently received a clear verdict from the people – what they cannot achieve through dem- ocratic means, they are trying to obtain through other avenues." The warning did not go unnoticed by the Stand- ards Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi, who under- lined his disagreement with the Prime Minister. "Despite these considerations, the undersigned does not agree with the Prime Minister that the complaint represents some form of abuse by the complainant. The complainant exercised a right given to him at law, and in the undersigned's opinion it would constitute a regression for gov- ernment institutions in Malta if the law is changed to limit that right," Azzopardi warned. In Cassola's words: "Robert Abela is rewriting democracy into autocracy, clause by clause." It is worrying that the Prime Minister should choose to go down this dangerous path in front of the accountability test. The very logical deduction any right-thinking individual will reach in these circumstances is that the government has some- thing to hide, or else it has grown so arrogant that it has become allergic to criticism and calls for scrutiny. Quote of the Week "We cannot speak of anything else if we turn a blind eye to genocide... when it comes to Gaza, where 20,000 children have been killed, the equivalent of how many children we have in Maltese schools, this House loses its voice... It's not antisemitic to call out documented war in 2025. This is not World War II but the atrocities of World War II have returned in 2025... If we cannot speak out in the face of these atrocities, then what do we even stand for in this House? " Labour MEP Daniel Attard in an impassioned speech at the European Parliament, in the presence of European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas. MaltaToday 10 years ago 5 April 2015 No retains seven-point lead THE last MaltaToday survey before next week's referendum confirms the No camp's sevenpoint lead, already registered in two previous surveys, one held in February and another held last month. The latest survey had a sample of 1,100, up from 600 in the three previous surveys. The greater sample lowers the margin of error from +/4 to +/-3 points. Although the No to spring hunting cam- paign has retained its solid seven-point lead over the yes camp, the outcome of the referendum remains unclear as 17% of re- spondents remain undecided. The survey also shows that female voters are more un- decided. Labour voters also tend to be more undecided than PN voters. The survey sees both camps retaining the same level of support as two weeks ago. While support for the no camp decreased by half a point, from 40.2 to 39.7, support for the Yes camp declined by 0.1% from 33.5% to 33.4%. Undecided voters have increased by 1.2% and non-voters by 0.4%. Non-respondents have decreased by one point. This means that the No camp is now lead- ing by 6.5 percentage points, down from 6.7 points a fortnight ago. The survey shows that 55% of PL voters will be voting 'yes', while 67% of PN voters will be voting no. The survey also shows the Yes camp gain- ing only one point among Labour voters despite Joseph Muscat's pro-spring hunting declaration in Gozo two weeks ago. But the survey shows a sixpoint drop in support for the No camp among National- ist voters, which is corresponded by an in- crease in non-voters.