Updated 1.25pm with Speaker's reaction below - “I need to draw the attention of The Times,” Speaker Anġlu Farrugia mocked from his chair. “I ask the Times to find somebody to read my ruling in Maltese for them so they might understand what I wrote,” he sneered sarcastically in self-congratulation.
In Labour’s inimical style, the speaker of a European state parliament abuses his power to ridicule and insult journalists of the country’s most widely-read newspaper.
As all other media houses shudder at his infantilism and indecorum, one media organisation gleefully applauds. One News broadcast his smarty comments under the title ‘Another telling off for the Times about an incorrect report about the speaker’. Brandishing the newspaper in parliament, Farrugia, trampled democracy once again.
Times of Malta correctly reported that “Speaker allows unanswered PQs on positions of trust”. Nothing stings like the truth, which explains the speaker’s reflex resort to insult and offence.
David Thake had asked several ministers a simple parliamentary question. He requested a list of persons occupying positions of trust, their remuneration and the start and end dates of their contracts. The ministers offered an identical stock non-reply: “The list of positions of trust complies with the Manual, a copy of which has been tabled in Parliament.” None of them answered the question.
The appalling reality was that this was not just a solitary cantankerous minister. This was a coordinated, orchestrated wall of secrecy constructed by Robert Abela’s government to block access to information. Democracy is based on informed citizenship. By withholding that information, Labour surreptitiously dismantles democracy.
On May 19, 2021, Thake requested the speaker to intervene to ensure ministers answer his PQ and provide the public with information they have a right to, particularly since this relates to public funds.
What Thake overlooked was that the speaker was Farrugia, Labour’s former deputy leader and police superintendent who was alleged by Daphne Caruana Galizia to have obtained a forced false confession.
Thake forgot this was the same man who had made it his life’s mission to undermine democracy and defend Labour at all costs. This was the man who stifled any parliamentary debate that might embarrass Labour, such as on the Daphne investigation (‘Speaker rejects motion for urgent parliamentary debate on Daphne case’, November 25, 2019) or Keith Schembri’s offshore accounts (‘Speaker Anġlu Farrugia will not allow questions on Keith Schembri’s offshore accounts’, MaltaToday, March 14, 2018) or the Egrant inquiry (‘Speaker rejects parliamentary questions concerning publication of Egrant inquiry’, The Malta Independent, October 1, 2018).
Persistently and pigheadedly, he frustrates all efforts by MPs to expose the truth
This was also the man who turned down a request to name a parliamentary hall after Caruana Galizia. This was the same speaker who abstained on Carmelo Abela’s breach of ethical standards, leading to exoneration of the minister.
True to form, Farrugia lived up to expectations. He aided and abetted Labour’s concealment of the truth. He ensured that total secrecy was maintained.
The speaker’s excuse was that he has no power to interfere in the content of the answers provided by ministers. Except that the ministers had provided no answer at all. The reply given cannot remotely be construed as an answer.
To justify his position, Farrugia quoted Erskine May: “The speaker’s responsibility in regard to questions is limited to their compliance with the rules of the house.” He quoted former House of Commons speaker John Bercow: “It would be unwise for me to express a view on the adequacy of a particular ministerial answer.”
And deviously concluded that he cannot take any action with regard to Thake’s request.
To put it mildly, Farrugia was being disingenuous. In fact, he was distorting, manipulating and misquoting to shield Labour. Only days earlier, on April 29, Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle blasted Tory ministers for failing to answer questions on poll spending. Hoyle was unequivocal: “It is totally unacceptable for government to not supply details to MPs.” But Farrugia did not quote Hoyle.
Hoyle went on: “We’re elected by our constituents and they expect a service that is being denied by ministerial departments – I am dissatisfied. Take MPs seriously, they deserve the service and so do their constituents.”
Bercow, the former speaker whom Farrugia quoted, had even ordered then prime minister David Cameron to answer a question.
When Cameron gave a reply that failed to answer the question put by John Cryer, Bercow commented that it was a “good idea to try to remember the essence of the question that was put”. He did for a moment suggest that he did not have the power to force the prime minister to answer the question. But, then, Bercow’s daughter was not made a magistrate.
Erskine May is categorical. It states: “It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”
And to leave no doubt as to how onerous that responsibility is, it adds: “Ministers who knowingly mislead parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the prime minister.”
The House of Commons speaker “stressed the importance of substantive answers being given in a timely manner” as far back as 2010. The speaker also deprecated long statements falsely circulated as answers. And to leave no doubt at all, the Commons speaker ruled that replies to parliamentary questions should be helpful and clear and not simply refer to material on an official website.
What is undeniable is that Thake’s questions were never answered. Nobody knows who the hundreds, if not thousands, of Labour’s persons of trust are, how many millions of euros they cost the nation or when we hope to wean them off that gravy train.
As parliament becomes another worthless futile institution, we have one person to blame. The speaker, whose responsibility it is to ensure the proper function of our legislative body, is the underminer in chief.
Instead of ensuring parliament fulfils its main function of representing the electorate and its interests, the speaker enables government to deny the electorate the very essence of democracy – transparency and accountability.
Persistently and pigheadedly, he frustrates all efforts by MPs to expose the truth. Staunchly and steadfastly, Farrugia protects only the rotten interests of a secretive oligarchy to which he remains indebted.
And adds insult to injury with his acerbic taunting of the press.
Kevin Cassar, Professor of surgery and former PN candidate
Speaker's reaction
In a statement in Maltese in reaction to the above article, Speaker Anġlu Farrugia insisted that, as confirmed in rulings by several of his predecessors, Standing Orders do not give him any power to regulate or go into the merit of ministers' replies to questions in the House.
He referred in particular to rulings by Speakers Lawrence Gonzi, Myriam Spiteri Debono, Anton Tabone and Louis Galea.
Speaker Louis Galea had ruled on December 7, 2009 that Standing Orders went into some detail with regard to parliamentary questions but did not regulate the replies. It was therefore the consistent practice of the Chair to regulate questions but to never express itself on the replies, pointing out that the Orders did not give it any function in that regard. This was a matter which the Chair could not bring about for itself since, according to the Constitution, it was only the House that could decide its rules and the conduct of its business.
In terms of the law, it was not the role of the Chair to comment on or censure a minister's reply, even when the reply evidently did not meet the basic elements of the question. In such cases, it was up to the MP to demand a satisfactory reply through a supplementary question or another written question, or through intervention at the proper time in the House.
The Speaker said the Chair could only recommend, as various Speakers had done, that MPs should be given the requested information or directed to it if it was already public.