Speaker turns down privilege complaints

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Anton Tabone, yesterday turned down two breach of privilege complaints raised by Labour MPs.

The complaints were raised just before the summer recess by Dr José Herrera following a report in the newspaper MaltaToday, and by Dr Anglu Farrugia, who had complained that his speech in parliament was not reported in a section of the media.

With regard to Dr Herrera's complaint, Mr Tabone said the newspaper had reported what the Labour MP had said in the House and added its own comments and opinions.

Several previous rulings by the Chair made clear that nothing could prevent a newspaper from commenting on remarks made in parliament or from drawing its own conclusions.

The Privileges Ordinance laid down that a breach of the privileges of the House would have been committed when there was wilful or reckless publication of any false or perverted report of any debate of proceedings of the House or the publication of any defamatory libel on the Speaker or any MP touching anything done or said by him in the House or a committee of the house.

Libel would amount to contempt of an MP when it was closely linked to what was said in the House. Furthermore, all MPs had the ordinary remedies available at law if they felt slandered by something said about them.

He said the Chair wanted to appeal to the press to report the proceedings of the House faithfully.

With regard to Dr Farrugia's complaints, Mr Tabone said that the fact that an MP's remarks in the House were not reported in the press did not constitute a breach of privilege.