Momentum Calls On NGOs, Political Parties And Civil Society To Band Together And Push For A Referendum On Bill 125
Momentum Chairperson Arnold Cassola has once again called for an abrogative referendum on the reform of the law on magisterial inquiries which has stripped citizens of the right to report a crime to a magistrate.
To do this, Cassola is urging political parties, NGOs and civil society to band together and form a referendum committee to collect the signatures from 10% of the voting population necessary to kick-start the referendum.
In particular, Momentum is calling on the Nationalist Party which, it argued, “did not lift a single finger” in the 2015 Spring hunting referendum to be part of the effort and promote a referendum.
“Now that President Myriam Spiteri Debono has confirmed that ‘the Constitution is clear’ and that she no choice but to sign the magisterial inquiry reform bill, meant to curtail the rights and democratic freedoms of citizens, and imposed upon parliament by Prime Minister Robert Abela and Justice Minister Jonathan Atard, there is no other avenue left but to go for a national abrogative referendum to cancel the anti-democratic articles, as originally proposed by ADPD,” Cassola stated.
“We are furthermore comforted in our line of reasoning by the words pronounced yesterday by Constitutional Law specialist, Prof. Kevin Aquilina, who wrote: ‘What I am proposing is that the (regressive) article or articles in the new law to be published in the coming days that celebrate Malta as a mafia state are revoked’.”
“We hope that now, in 2025, the PN will not repeat its 2015 Pontius Pilate attitude and will be part of the common effort to promote the efforts for a referendum to abrogate the Abela-Attard regressive articles on Magisterial Inquiries that have just been passed through parliament”, Cassola concluded.
Bill 125 was passed last week with very minor amendments to the original reform. All PN MPs opposed this bill, however, the Labour Party’s majority within parliament led to this ultimate decision.
The reform has proved controversial since its announcement with activist organisations, political parties, student groups and civil society expressing concern that this could be the “another nail in democracy’s coffin“.
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