Just over a month after the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, George Hyzler, made a strong case against the practice of giving government jobs and consultancies to backbench MPs, he has now produced an important ruling that is meant to dismantle a custom that goes against the spirit and letter of good governance.
It is bad enough seeing the lines between government and party getting increasingly blurred, another shortcoming in a democratic environment.
But it is absolutely unacceptable for government ministers, or officials for that matter, to make use of official entities for their personal ends.
In the same way Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi had not known that one could not just go about setting up an offshore company without letting the tax people know about it, he was unaware that he could not make use of the Department of Information to disseminate information of a personal nature.
He did this when he issued a statement announcing he was withdrawing several libel suits over money-laundering accusations against him. The minister held the matter was of public interest, but the commissioner thought otherwise.
The commissioner drew a distinction between matters of interest to the public, in the sense that they arouse or satisfy public curiosity, and matters of public interest that concern decisions and actions taken by the holders of state or public office in their official capacity, or otherwise directly related to public services or public policy.
Dr Hyzler did not mince his words. He rightly argued that drawing a government department into the political fray by using it to disseminate, in furtherance of a personal or partisan agenda, statements that were not directly related to government policy or matters of public interest amounted to an abuse of public resources.
The minister made the mistake even worse when he used such language as “web of deceit”, “mud-slinging”, “ploy”, “baseless allegations and slander” and “loss of political credibility”.
He was at his weakest point when in his defence he brought up the point that, in the time of the Nationalist Party in government, the DOI used to issue statements by ministers and parliamentary secretaries which both in tone and content were far from impartial.
Counter-balancing a wrongdoing with another is a standard political ploy meant to appease keen party followers, but most others are not amused by such antics. Abuse ought not to be tolerated any time under whatever administration.
The DOI has been serving as a conveyor belt for government propaganda for far too many years, when it ought to be strictly concerned with the dissemination of official information, shorn of any partisan politics or propaganda.
The same can be said for the state broadcasting media, which is invariably hijacked by the government for its political ends.
For years, State television ‘news’ has been turned into a propaganda machine for the government. It is hardly realistic to expect any government to be all too willing to rehabilitate the two entities when keeping them under its firm control serves it well.
Together with the jobs for backbenchers and the employment of a growing number of party people in positions of trust, the appropriation of public entities for partisan political ends is yet another practice that flies in the face of acceptable democratic principles.