Labour and PN MPs on Monday voted in favour of removing Rosianne Cutajar from a parliament committee she chaired. 

In a motion put forward by the government, parliament agreed to kick Cutajar off the social affairs committee, replacing her with PL MP Randolph Debattista. 

Another Labour MP, Katya De Giovanni, will now chair the committee. 

Cutajar was forced to resign from Labour's parliamentary group following the publication of chat transcripts detailing her close relationship with murder suspect Yorgen Fenech. 

The Qormi MP said she would be staying on in parliament as an independent MP.

Monday's decision capped a years-long descent down Labour’s pecking order that began when Times of Malta revealed how she had pocketed thousands of euro from Fenech as part of a property deal in Mdina.

At the time, Cutajar was a parliamentary secretary. She was made to resign from that post after parliament’s standards commissioner concluded that she should be investigated for tax evasion, as she had not declared that money in her income statements.

Cutajar was kept out of cabinet from that moment onwards, though she was nevertheless trusted to lead parliamentary committees.

In January 2022, she was appointed chair of parliament’s health committee. After the 2022 general election, held some months later, she was made chair of the social affairs committee.