There was no urgent need to amend the Constitution but rather to respect it, Judge Giovanni Bonello said yesterday.
He was speaking during the third edition of the President’s Forum, where Opposition leader Lawrence Gonzi called for the debate on constitutional reform to take place in the Select Committee of the House of Representatives.
The forum discussed whether the Constitution still met the needs of the people.
During the three-hour discussion the panel speeches ranged from a call to draft a completely new Constitution to Dr Bonello’s urging for caution.
He insisted the Constitution was supreme but referred to cases where the constitutional court had declared particular laws as anti-constitutional and this declaration applied only to the person who instituted the case. The law then remained in force until Parliament decided to move the necessary amendments.
Dr Bonello, who heads a commission to reform the justice system, cited cases where the constitutional court contradicted itself on the validity of a law in similar cases.
These incidents meant the supremacy of the Constitution was being ignored, he said.
“We do not have to change the Constitution... but we should read it...
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