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Malta Constitution Act 1932
The current Constitution of Malta ( mt, Konstituzzjoni ta' Malta) was adopted as a legal order on 21 September 1964, and is the self-declared supreme law of the land. Therefore, any law or action in violation of the Constitution is null and void. Being a rigid constitution, it has a three-tier entrenchment basis in order for any amendments to take place. Constitutional development since independence The Constitution has been amended twenty-four times, most recently in 2020 with the entrenchment that firstly, the chief justice from now on shall be appointed by a resolution of Parliament – the legislature is appointing the member of the Judiciary – the Chief Justice. This resolution has to be supported by the votes of at least two thirds of all those members who are eligible to vote. The constitution is typically called the Constitution of Malta and replaced the 1961 Constitution, dating from 24 October 1961. George Borg Olivier was its main instigator and negotiator. Under i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies south of Sicily (Italy), east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The official languages are Maltese and English, and 66% of the current Maltese population is at least conversational in the Italian language. Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British, amongst others. With a population of about 516,000 over an area of , Malta is the world's tenth-smallest country in area and fourth most densely populated sovereign cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cabinet (government)
A cabinet is a body of high-ranking state officials, typically consisting of the executive branch's top leaders. Members of a cabinet are usually called cabinet ministers or secretaries. The function of a cabinet varies: in some countries, it is a collegiate decision-making body with collective responsibility, while in others it may function either as a purely advisory body or an assisting institution to a decision-making head of state or head of government. Cabinets are typically the body responsible for the day-to-day management of the government and response to sudden events, whereas the legislative and judicial branches work in a measured pace, in sessions according to lengthy procedures. In some countries, particularly those that use a parliamentary system (e.g., the UK), the Cabinet collectively decides the government's direction, especially in regard to legislation passed by the parliament. In countries with a presidential system, such as the United States, the Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parliamentary Democracy
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the legislature, typically a parliament, to which it is accountable. In a parliamentary system, the head of state is usually a person distinct from the head of government. This is in contrast to a presidential system, where the head of state often is also the head of government and, most importantly, where the executive does not derive its democratic legitimacy from the legislature. Countries with parliamentary systems may be constitutional monarchies, where a monarch is the head of state while the head of government is almost always a member of parliament, or parliamentary republics, where a mostly ceremonial president is the head of state while the head of government is regularly from the legislature. In a few parliamentary republics, among ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for conservatism and for tradition in general, tolerance, and ... individualism". John Dunn. ''Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future'' (1993). Cambridge University Press. . Liberals espouse various views depending on their understanding of these principles. However, they generally support private property, market economies, individual rights (including civil rights and human rights), liberal democracy, secularism, rule of law, economic and political freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion. Liberalism is frequently cited as the dominant ideology of modern times.Wolfe, p. 23.Adams, p. 11. Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2008 Maltese General Election
General elections were held in Malta on 8 March 2008 to elect all Member of parliament, members of the Parliament of Malta, House of Representatives They were held alongside 2008 Maltese local elections, local elections. The elections were contested by the Nationalist Party (Malta), Nationalist Party, the Malta Labour Party, Labour party, six other parties and independents. The governing Nationalist Party led by Lawrence Gonzi won its third consecutive election against the Labour Party led by Alfred Sant, winning the popular vote by a margin of just 0.55% and with its majority in parliament reduced to just one seat. Voter turnout was 93%. Background The House of Representatives was dissolved on 4 February, with elections scheduled for 8 March, the same day that local elections were to be held in 23 of 68 local councils of Malta, local councils. Results Initial exit polls and statistics suggested a very close result. Preliminary results had been expected by Sunday noon but these ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerrymandering
In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" (diluting the voting power of the opposing party's supporters across many districts) or "packing" (concentrating the opposing party's voting power in one district to reduce their voting power in other districts). Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Wayne Dawkins describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians. The term ''gerrymandering'' is named after American politician Elbridge Gerry, Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single Transferable Vote
Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate preferences if their preferred candidate is eliminated, so that their vote is used to elect someone they prefer over others in the running. STV aims to approach proportional representation based on votes cast in the district where it is used, so that each vote is worth about the same as another. Under STV, no one party or voting bloc can take all the seats in a district unless the number of seats in the district is very small or almost all the votes cast are cast for one party's candidates (which is seldom the case). This makes it different from other district voting systems. In majoritarian/plurality systems such as first-past-the-post (FPTP), instant-runoff voting (IRV; also known as the alternative vote), block voting, and ranked-vote ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Department
Ministry or department (also less commonly used secretariat, office, or directorate) are designations used by first-level executive bodies in the machinery of governments that manage a specific sector of public administration." Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона", т. XIX (1896): Мекенен — Мифу-Баня, "Министерства", с. 351—357 :s:ru:ЭСБЕ/Министерства These types of organizations are usually led by a politician who is a member of a cabinet—a body of high-ranking government officials—who may use a title such as minister, secretary, or commissioner, and are typically staffed with members of a non-political civil service, who manage its operations; they may also oversee other government agencies and organizations as part of a political portfolio. Governments may have differing numbers and types of ministries and departments. In some countries, these terms may be used with specif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minister (government)
A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘prime minister’, ‘premier’, ‘chief minister’, ‘chancellor’ or other title. In Commonwealth realm jurisdictions which use the Westminster system of government, ministers are usually required to be members of one of the houses of Parliament or legislature, and are usually from the political party that controls a majority in the lower house of the legislature. In other jurisdictions—such as Belgium, Mexico, Netherlands, Philippines, Slovenia, and Nigeria—the holder of a cabinet-level post or other government official is not permitted to be a member of the legislature. Depending on the administrative arrangements in each jurisdiction, ministers are usually heads of a government department and members of the government's ministry, cabinet and p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executive Authority
The Executive, also referred as the Executive branch or Executive power, is the term commonly used to describe that part of government which enforces the law, and has overall responsibility for the governance of a state. In political systems based on the separation of powers, such as the USA, government authority is distributed between several branches in order to prevent power being concentrated in the hands of a single person or group. To achieve this, each branch is subject to checks by the other two; in general, the role of the Legislature is to pass laws, which are then enforced by the Executive, and interpreted by the Judiciary. The Executive can be also be the source of certain types of law, such as a decree or executive order. In those that use fusion of powers, typically Parliamentary systems, the Executive forms the government and its members generally belong to the political party that controls the legislature or "Parliament". Since the Executive requires the suppo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Representatives Of Malta
The Parliament of Malta ( mt, Il-Parlament ta' Malta) is the constitutional legislative body in Malta, located in Valletta. The parliament is unicameral, with a democratically elected House of Representatives and the President of Malta. By constitutional law, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, must be members of the House of Representatives. Between 1921 and 1933 the Parliament was bicameral, consisting of a Senate ''(Senat)'' as well as a Legislative Assembly ''(Assemblea Leġiżlattiva)''. House of Representatives of Malta The House of Representatives ( mt, Kamra tad-Deputati) is the unicameral legislature of Malta and a component of the Parliament of Malta. The House is presided over by the Speaker of the House. The President of Malta is appointed for a five-year term by a resolution of the House. Composition The House is composed of an odd number of members elected for one legislative term of five years. Ordinarily, five members are returned from each o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unicameral
Unicameralism (from ''uni''- "one" + Latin ''camera'' "chamber") is a type of legislature, which consists of one house or assembly, that legislates and votes as one. Unicameral legislatures exist when there is no widely perceived need for multicameralism (two or more chambers). Many multicameral legislatures were created to give separate voices to different sectors of society. Multiple houses allowed, for example, for a guaranteed representation of different social classes (as in the Parliament of the United Kingdom or the French States-General). Sometimes, as in New Zealand and Denmark, unicameralism comes about through the abolition of one of two bicameral chambers, or, as in Sweden, through the merger of the two chambers into a single one, while in others a second chamber has never existed from the beginning. Rationale for unicameralism and criticism The principal advantage of a unicameral system is more efficient lawmaking, as the legislative process is simpler and there is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
