60 years ago on September 21, 1964 Malta declared independence from Great Britain. Thus ending 164 years of British rule.
In 1961 – after years of intense negotiations with the British government – an agreement is reached on the adoption of a new constitution which will lay the foundations of Malta as an independent state.
A referendum on this new constitution – which turns the country into an independent state – took place on the island between 2 and 4 May 1964. It was approved by 54.5% of the voters and in September Malta became independent and the then British Queen Elizabeth II was recognized as its head of state.
During its existence, Malta has had a long and complicated history, as a result of which the island has been ruled by numerous foreign rulers. Such rulers were “Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Sicilians, Swabians, Aragonese, Hospitallers, French and British”.
Malta's last ruler, Britain, granted Malta self-government after its brave resistance to the Axis powers and its loyalty to Great Britain during World War II, allowing the independence movement to gain more traction.
>Malta declared independence from the British Empire and joined the Commonwealth of Nations in 1964, and a decade later declared itself a republic. In 1979, all British military presence was ended, and in 2004 Malta joined the European Union.
At midnight on 21 September 1964, the Constitution of an independent Malta breathed life into the Parliament of Malta, the Government of Malta and the Judiciary, which must protect our democratic freedoms by ensuring that the Constitution of Malta is truly in force as supreme law.