The government tries to give the impression that a deadlock-breaking mechanism is crucial to ensuring key appointments can be made. It may well have managed to pull the wool over our eyes were it not for blatant examples of its neglectful treatment of sensitive parliamentary institutions, which gives its game away.
Damning reports by the auditor general on the squandering of millions of euros in taxpayer’s money remain unactioned.
The first standards commissioner was ‘rewarded’ for his unbending determination to keep pushing standards higher, by being given a job in Luxembourg a year before his term expired. And the problems facing the ombudsman have reached a point that outgoing incumbent Anthony Mifsud cannot take it anymore.
“After more than 27 years, the provisions of the Ombudsman Act [to turn to parliament for action on its investigations] remain a dead letter. There has never been the political will to discuss and even less implement them. It not only shows a lack of respect for the institution but for the very law,” he told Times of Malta.
His comments indicate that both political parties have a lot to answer for in this regard. Like the emperors of the past, they prefer to have eunuchs around them.
Figures provided by the ombudsman’s office show that parliament ignored all 35 of its tabled reports between 2020 and last year. The reports are forwarded to parliament after being unsuccessfully referred to the office of the prime minister and were either rejected or ignored by the public administration or entity involved.
Mifsud made two observations that further expose the hypocrisy of politicians when they take rigid stands – as is happening now – in the appointment of people to such sensitive offices.
He rightly complained that such a “regrettable” state of affairs demonstrates MPs’ failure to appreciate the statutory status of the ombudsman as a parliamentary institution.
“It also manifests parliament’s inability,” the outgoing ombudsman added, “to grasp the reality that, through its persistent inaction, aggrieved citizens are being deprived of their right to effective access to parliament.”
Such criticism comes from a person with a long career in the civil service and a former auditor general. His term of office as ombudsman has been extended by well over a year precisely because the political parties continue to put their own interests before those of the people in their failure to find an agreed-upon replacement.
In Mifsud’s view, the only way to really move forward is for parliamentary select committees to be statutorily obliged to consider the ombudsman’s final opinions.
This should be only a start. Experience shows that even such a measure would not get things moving in the right direction. Indeed, down the years, but notably post-2013, there have been many attempts by MPs, in discussing reports by the auditor general, the standards commissioner or the ombudsman in committee, to draw the debates out into never-ending, inconclusive affairs. Most of those attempts were successful.
What is the point of the parties represented in parliament insisting on having the best-qualified people to fill such offices and protesting at their own nominations being blocked if these reports remain on paper?
It is time – and it is long overdue – for parliament to enact legislation setting down time frames for the compulsory discussion of reports by parliamentary institutions.
An action plan should then be drafted and submitted to the speaker – and to the president, if necessary – to ensure it is implemented.
Which side will move such a motion first? Citizens should not hold their breath.