Editorial: Comfortably managing impunity

There is a particular brand of arrogance that only long incumbency can breed. When a government no longer feels the need to pretend after having grown so comfortable in power and assured of its own continuity, it appears that it can stop performing the rituals of accountability altogether.

Malta’s government, in tabling amendments to the parliamentary code of ethics this week, offers a masterclass in precisely that kind of hubris.

Justice Minister Jonathan Attard presented the abolition of the ministerial asset declaration as a strengthening of ethical obligations for MPs. In narrow, selective ways, they are: all MPs will now declare virtual currencies, intangible assets, professional consultancies. A formal register of interests will be introduced.

These are not nothing, but they will serve as the façade to the Potemkin village that ministerial accountability will be turned into.

The substantive change is the abolition of the ministerial declaration of assets. Under the current code, ministers are obliged to immediately provide a full statement of their assets and interests to the cabinet secretary. It is a specific requirement, designed precisely because ministers are not merely parliamentarians.

As government’s executives, they hold the levers of public spending and procurement and have the power to influence regulatory policy especially in authorities staffed by ministerial appointees – particularly the all-powerful Planning Authority. The potential for conflicts of interest in Maltese administrations has never been theoretical.

If these amendments pass that requirement is now simply deleted.

Robert Abela’s argument that ministerial declarations are redundant when MPs file annual financial declarations with parliament, does not survive scrutiny.

The message to the electorate is clear: a new Labour administration is seeking to govern with fewer mirrors

The standards commissioner himself has rightly pointed out in writing that MPs’ declarations are less detailed than ministerial ones, failing to come with a proper template that can track annual changes in income and bank accounts held by spouses.

In one of the House’s more bizarre practices, unlike ministerial declarations, the MPs’ declarations are not published but only made available for inspection, and then journalists and members of the public cannot take copies or photographs but instead take laborious notes of the details.

On the other hand, under the Income Tax Management Act, the Speaker of the House can furnish editors of registered newspapers with a soft copy of each MP’s income tax assessments.

In the face of this game of hide-and-seek, it is hard not to perceive once again the litigious contempt the government has towards expectations of transparency.

This administration has been prone to self-enrichment and influence-peddling – consider the various property interests amassed by former ministers like Roderick Galdes, as well as the extensive portfolios of other veteran ministers.

Against the burgeoning obligations instilled by the EU’s anti-money laundering rules, the proposed amendments are now also narrowing the obligation on MPs to declare property. Where the current code requires declaration of properties owned by an MP or jointly with a spouse, the new code limits this to an MP’s own immovable property. A spouse’s solely-owned holdings simply disappear from view.

Such an omission cannot be underestimated, especially in view of the Panama Papers and ministerial resignations related to illicit or suspicious gains.

Contrary to the prevailing playbook, at a time when a government seeking re-election might tend to shore up their credentials during an election year with a show of clean hands, this government is instead choosing to roll back transparency requirements. It signals a degree of confidence in managing impunity.

Malta deserves better than a government that legislates transparency away to call it ‘reform’. But the message to the electorate is clear: a new Labour administration is seeking to govern with fewer mirrors.