The size of the Maltese legislature : a critical and comparative analysis

Abstract

The Legislature within the State of Malta, is of utmost importance. It is one of the three main branches of the legal system and it is the main body in charge of enacting new laws and amendments within the Maltese legal system. The main aim of the HoR is to represent the citizens which elect members into the House. In Malta, participation in the process of electing members to the HoR has always raised a significant amount of interest and in fact, voter turnout for these elections has never been below 90% of eligible voters, which in itself is proof that the general public is engaged within the process of electing it’s representatives in Parliament. The size of the legislature is one of the main characteristics of the HoR itself. Throughout the entirety of the Maltese Constitutional development, the size of Parliament has always been a very fluid characteristic which has very much changed throughout the years. Through this dissertation, the author will conduct an analysis of such an important characteristic. An evaluation of laws and statutes which regulate the size of the legislature will be done and, furthermore, case law which is relevant and has had an effect on the size of the legislature will also be discussed in detail throughout this dissertation. A comparative study will look to assess the size of the Maltese Legislature in comparison to the size of the Cypriot Legislature and assesing the differences between the size of the HoR of the two island-states. Finally, the future of the HoR will be looked into it with particular attention being given to Gender Quotas and how such quotas will impact the size of the legislature through mechanisms within Malta’s Constitution.