The government has proposed an anti-deadlock mechanism to the Standards Commissioner bill that would allow the official to be appointed with a simple majority on the third round of voting.

It proposed the mechanism after the Opposition rejected its choice to the role, former Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi, without giving a reason for its objection.

Borg Bonello compared this bill to Nazi Germany’s infamous Enabling Act of 1933, which granted the German Cabinet the power to bypass the Reichstag when passing laws.

“When a position like this is based solely on the will of one side of the House, checks and balances disappear, and the position becomes a repressive one,” she warned.

“That was what happened in the thirties, when the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis voted in Parliament to strip their governments off this type of control. A little bit of research will immediately show you that authoritarian governments always use this recipe.”

The young MP went on to question whether the government intends to change more democratic laws to further its grip on power.

“Will it remove elections to simplify the government’s work? At the end of the day, we are here as an Opposition to represent the people who voted for us, and if the PN is silenced, everyone who didn’t vote against the government will also be silenced.”

“History shows that dictators and their allies never tell their people that they intend to take over and become dictators, but do what this government is doing and come up with excuses such as improving efficiency. Democratic power is then eroded bit by bit until the government controls all forms of power – this is what happens in countries where the concept of free democracy is inexistent.”

Borg Bonello brought up the police’s decision to prosecute satirist Matt Bonanno over a joke he made against River of Love as a sign the government is moving further towards autocracy.

“We are slowly edging closer towards becoming a dictatorship and this behaviour has even been criticised by one of its former ministers. We have learned absolutely nothing as a country – the government hasn’t understood that it is a government of the people and not just an extension of the Labour Party, and it cannot understand that the Standards Commissioner is responsible to Parliament and not to one side of the House.”

She urged the government to replace the bill with one that would enshrine the importance of a two-thirds Parliament vote for the Standards Commissioner within the Constitution.

“That is what a government that believes in democracy would do – strengthen our institutions by making them more independent from the government of the day and ensuring they are trusted by two-thirds of MPs.”

What do you make of Eve Borg Bonello’s speech?