Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/758493
7 MIRIAM DALLI A parliament with fewer members would prove to be more efficient, according to Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia. For the first time in its history, the Maltese House of Representatives is made up of 71 members as a result of the decision of the Constitutional Court to grant the Nationalist Party two extra seats in return for a mis- take made during the vote counting at the 2013 general election. Farrugia, who has repeatedly called for changes to parliament's standing orders in order to reflect "the times of today", told MaltaToday that it was high time the two political parties represented in parliament – Labour and PN – take reform talks seriously. He believes that there should be a limit to the number of members elected to parliament; the seats that can be elected from each district should be restricted whilst even Malta's 13 districts should be re- duced. "For a country with a population of just over 400,000 we surely do have a lot of MPs," he said, adding that Malta's proportion of MPs to its residents was definitely high. Although with larger populations, countries like Luxembourg and Cy- prus are often used to draw com- parisons with Malta. Farrugia in fact refers to these countries to make his point of how "excessive" the Maltese parliament's composition is: Lux- embourg has a maximum of 60 MPs whilst 50 members sit in the Cypriot chamber. "A change in this sense requires amendments to the Constitution and the government and the op- position should initiate talks to de- termine how this could be brought about," Farrugia said. But are the Labour and Nationalist parties willing to kickstart the talks? It seems that they are more likely to go around the topic from their point of view. On its part, the Labour Party told MaltaToday that it was busy con- sidering the "unprecedented" court decision and the repercussions that might arise as a result. The imme- diate effect, the spokesperson said, was the composition of parliament. "Because the government has a strong and unequivocal majority, nothing has changed in terms of sta- bility. But one has to see how these changes would affect future govern- ments," a spokesperson for Labour said. "One has to analyze the situation meticulously to ensure that the principle of proportionality advo- cated in our Constitution is truly adhered to. The PL is doing so." A spokesperson for the National- ist opposition said that the PN has been "open to electoral reform" for the past 20 years but this has been "systematically blocked" by the La- bour Party. "It would be pertinent to note that today we have 71 MPs only because two Labour MPs should not have been there," the PN spokesperson added. But perhaps what worries the Speaker more is the length and quality of debates in parliament. Parliamentary procedure – the standing orders – gives each indi- vidual a maximum of 40 minutes to say what they like during parlia- mentary discussions on a particu- lar bill. The Labour government has now agreed to go down to 30 minutes although no changes have come into force as yet. "The speaking time of each MP should be limited to a maximum of 20 minutes... Imagine 71 MPs each with 40 minutes speaking time; parliament's efficiency in terms of clearance rate of legislation would be affected," Farrugia said. The Speaker said that standing orders should also be changed to allow the interruption of a member of parliament "who is saying ridicu- lous and absurd things". For Farrugia, limiting the number of MPs means revisiting the con- stitution and reducing the number of members that could be elected from each district. He also sug- gests that the 13 districts should go down, increasing the number of localities with a particular district. "Taking Malta's size, it is a paro- chial system which sees citizens electing representatives from their same locality," he said. maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 DECEMBER 2016 News The MCA was officially set up to regulate communications services and oversee the liberalisation process. 2001 15 YEARS OF REGULATION, 15 YEARS SERVING THE LOCAL COMMUNITY www.mca.org.mt The MCA took over the responsibilities of the Information Society with the aim of improving digital citizenship across all strata of the Maltese Society. 2008 The former Wireless & Telegraphy Department was integrated with the MCA, bringing with it the responsibility for spectrum management and monitoring. 2004 A Business Innovation Development function was set up to actively engage with stakeholders to promote and facilitate ICT-driven innovation. 2014 2016 Continue to roll-out initiatives and implement policies that adequately address the changing market realities brought about by digital innovation. Speaker: Fewer MPs… more efficient parliament Metsola reaffirms Malta stand against tax harmonisation Speaker Anglu Farrugia says he would cut down the House to size. Photo by Ray Attard SPEAKING in the European Par- liament, MEP Roberta Metsola said that action against money laundering should not be used as an excuse to extend the EU's competencies on taxation. Maltese MEPs jealously guard their country's sovereignty on taxation, which allows the island to retain at least €200 million in tax from foreign companies set- ting up their tax residence in Malta, to benefit from tax re- bates. "When it comes to money laun- dering, there is no doubt of the need and urgency to tackle it. But it is also clear that we need to be careful of knee-jerk reac- tions. We must be very careful not to go down the road of hav- ing a disproportionate legislative response that risks infringing on States' sovereignty on taxation matters under the guise of going after money laundering," Met- sola told the EP. "Coming from the Union's smallest economy, we need to make sure that any measures we propose do not place a hugely disproportionate burden on economies like ours." Metsola said the Panama Pa- pers scandal had shone a light on more than dodgy tax havens. "It exposed the corrupt, unearthed money laundering activities on an almost industrial scale and shed light on the secret financial set-ups of senior politicians in member states. We have to be very clear that what we need to tackle here is abusive, illegal ac- tivity – money laundering – and not Member States' tax competi- tiveness."