More evidence of Alfred Sant's unwillingness to play ball.
The Times
Sant again warns that bailout deals must be ratified by Parliament
Former Prime Minister Alfred Sant said in Parliament tonight that
the procedures being followed by Malta to adopt eurozone
intergovernmental agreements are not in conformity with Malta's laws and
the Constitution.
Speaking in Parliament, Dr Sant stressed that deals reached in Europe
and involving outlay or financial guarantees by Malta needed to be
ratified by Parliament, something which was currently not being done.
Dr Sant recalled that earlier this month, when the House debated the
new bailout to Greece and an extension to the EU's bailout fund (the
EFSF) he had asked if ratification was needed.
Mr Speaker had replied that through the original legislation on both
the bailout and the EFSF (enacted last year) the government was
authorised to proceed.
Dr Sant said he had sought separate legal advice from two experts who
had both maintained that the ruling did not make legal sense. The
concept of implicit ratification was worthless and did not correspond to
any provision under Maltese law. Express and unequivocal ratification
of international agreements was a necessary procedure.
This meant that in approving Malta's participation in the bailout of
Greece and the EFSF, Parliament had been following an invalid procedure.
It was unprecedented that the Speaker's ruling constituted a flagrant
breach of the law, Dr Sant said.
This brought up a "Catch 22" problem in that any legislation that could be null could be contested in court.
Dr Sant called on the Speaker to take whatever discreet but direct
initiatives were necessary to regulate, carefully but without polemics,
the direction that Parliament took in its handling of international
agreements and their ratification.
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