Standards Commissioner denied power to publish decisions on dismissed complaints
Cross-party consensus that decision to publish should be left to concerned parties
Government and Opposition MPs on parliament’s permanent committee on standards in public life have unanimously agreed that the Standards Commissioner should not have the power to publish his decisions not to investigate complaints, instead leaving it at the discretion of the concerned parties.
In January, Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi wrote to parliament requesting that he be allowed to publish dismissal decisions, arguing that doing so would help prevent selective, wrong or deceitful interpretations of such decisions.
His request stemmed from a decision in December when he opted against investigating a claim that Opposition Leader Alex Borg had made misleading statements regarding generic medicines.
Azzopardi had made a similar request back in 2023, after MP Rosianne Cutajar had publicly claimed that a probe into her income as an Institute of Tourism Studies consultant had vindicated her. The complainant, NGO Repubblika, had subsequently released the commissioner's report in full. It revealed that the probe could not go ahead on a technicality, as the complaint was time-barred.
During a sitting of the committee chaired by Speaker Anġlu Farrugia on Monday, Justice Minister Jonathan Attard, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Dialogue and Housing Andy Ellul, together with Opposition MPs Mark Anthony Sammut and Joe Giglio, agreed that both the person who filed a complaint and the person it was made against should be free to publish the commissioner's report, or any part of it, as they deem fit.
The MPs argued the current framework should remain in place.