Should a council of state be established in Malta?

Abstract

Malta, as an ex-British colony, took much of today’s governmental system from the British one; from ideas of how Government should perform; how laws should be enacted; how the judicial system should function, down to the image of the Head of State. There are clear advantages in this system, such as the reduction of bureaucratic stages in the passing of legislation. However, the glass is also half empty. There are a number of shortcomings in this system, namely the possible abuse which may come from the principle of Parliamentary Supremacy. The Maltese-adopted British notion of Parliamentary Supremacy, quite literally implies that Parliament rules all and decides all, subject to its actions being consonant with the provisions of the Constitution of Malta. In fact Judge Emeritus Giovanni Bonello has said, both in his published work, as well as in Constitutionally-related fora, that while the Constitutional Court had declared, on many an occasion, that laws are unconstitutional, they still remained valid for as long as parliament failed to repeal them. Therefore, this discussion is at present, and has been for quite some time now, in turbulent waters.