Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/689748
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 8 JUNE 2016 News PHOTOGRAPHY BY DOI 'Sette Giugno' victims remembered MALTA yesterday commemorated the "Sette Giugno" riots of 97 years ago, in which four Maltese were shot dead by British troops in Valletta. Members of the National Feasts Committee laid wreaths on the tomb of the four victims – Wenzu Dyer, Guzeppi Bajada, Manwel Attard and Karmenu Abela – at the Addolarata cem- etery in Marsa. The day is immortalised in Maltese history because it is believed to be the beginning of the long road to Malta's Independence in 1964. On 7 June, 1919, the Maltese revolted against the increasing price of bread and food short- ages, the infamous 1903 Constitution with which Malta was still burdened at the time, the discharges from the Dockyard following the end of World War I, unpopular amendments to University regulations and British colonial oppression in general. The Maltese people were also demanding some form of representative government. The four men were shot by British troops during the riots in Valletta. Commemorating the events that led to great- er representation, Speaker Anglu Farrugia said "this is an appointment to help us understand better and what we should expect from Parlia- mentary democracy, which we were granted some two years since when the Amery-Milner Constitution came into force." Farrugia used his Sette Giugno speech to call for shorter parliamentary speeches and to sug- gest the establishment of a parliamentary com- mittee on "thinking". Addressing a crowd of politicians and dip- lomats during the Sette Giugno ceremony at Hastings Garden, Farrugia said that MPs' speeches should be slashed to 20 minutes, ex- cept in exceptional cases, so as to force them to stick to salient issues and to free up parlia- mentary time. The current Standing Orders allow MPs to speak for 40 minutes at a stretch. Ministers in- troducing debates on a Bill and their shadow ministers are allotted an hour and a half. "These provisions do not exist in any Eu- ropean or Commonwealth parliaments and should therefore be reviewed so that the time of the House may be used more productively," he said. "MPs must be able to say what they have to say in a short time, even in five or two minutes." He added that MPs should be given an allow- ance to employ assistants to help them write their parliamentary speeches. Farrugia also suggested the establishment of a parliamentary committee on 'thinking', an idea that has its roots in one of professor Ed- ward de Bono's recent publications. "The lack of value-added thinking leaves you at a standstill," he said. "We all know that the solution for certain problems will only be found if there is more thinking which is not necessarily conventional but open to other ideas, concepts and methodologies." Speaker Anglu Farrugia laying a wreath at the foot of the Sette Giugno monument in Valletta