The law speaks clearly of maintaining “high standards in public life”. The people expect and deserve no less, particularly as they continue to learn about the disdainful manner in which politicians and senior civil servants can behave.
The main responsibility to ensure these high standards are maintained falls squarely on the shoulders of the commissioner for standards in public life.
In late 2019, the office issued a document themed ‘Towards higher standards in public life’, authored by the present commissioner, George Hyzler, and his director-general, Charles Polidano.
In its introduction, the report notes that although the constitution supports ethical standards in public life it does not spell out such standards in detail but shapes them and shores them up through the general principles it sets out and the safeguards by which it seeks to uphold them.
“Clear principles and strong safeguards lead to higher standards. Unclear principles and weak safeguards lead to lower standards. Malta’s constitution needs to be strengthened in these respects,” the document said.
One can hardly disagree with that.
For the purposes of the commissioner’s official function, standards in public life should be writ in stone. And once a breach of ethics has been established, he should proceed to fall on the defaulter with the full force given to him by the law. No ifs or buts.
In his role, the standards commissioner cannot afford to set precedents or, worse, risk rendering his office a paper watchdog that barks but does not bite.
The commissioner must ensure his rulings have clout and that his pronouncements set standards that are not to be waived. He should always transmit a clear signal that those who err must face the music, even if, by law, it is the parliamentary standards committee that would, ultimately, decide what action should be taken.
In this context, a decision made a few days ago is rather worrying. It dealt with a complaint about partisan content in a press statement issued by Economy Minister Silvio Schembri through the department of information.
The commissioner concluded that the press release in question, which, he said, the department should not have published in the first place, “includes partisan political statements that fail to respect the separation between the role of minister and party member and that breach the principle of political impartiality of the public service”.
He declared Schembri had breached the code of ethics for ministers and parliamentary secretaries but, rather than proceeding to take action in terms of the law, he accepted the minister’s ‘I won’t do it again’ promise and closed the case. This when the commissioner had already shown ministers the yellow card on the matter of official statements.
It does not bode well either for such a high office to accept that information clearly in the public interest should remain under wraps. But that is the stand taken by the commissioner when it resulted that former prime minister Joseph Muscat had travelled to Dubai together with his family, all expenses paid by a third party.
Transparent and fully accountable politicians are a prerequisite if there are to be the high standards in public life the commissioner aspires to see.
For the office of the commissioner to be at par with that of the ombudsman and the auditor general, as Hyzler would like it to be, it must always put the people, not the politicians or public officers, first. The common good must always prevail.
If he expects clear principles and strong safeguards, the commissioner must push for them in every way possible.