We are witnessing an unprecedented deterioration of our parliamentary democracy.
Last week, the Speaker of the House, Anġlu Farrugia, took offence at a letter sent to him by Matthew Caruana Galizia in which he rightly complained at the Speaker’s farcical ‘reprimand’ letter to Rosianne Cutajar.
In typical Labour style, Farrugia hit back by asking a high-priced lawyer, paid by state coffers, to dismiss Caruana Galizia’s complaint.
In his letter, the Speaker styled himself as defender of the “democratic government of Malta”.
In so doing, the Speaker completely ditched his role of head of the legislative arm of the state and directly and unequivocally declared his partiality. He has admitted to being unable to carry out his duty to interpret the rules impartially.
He has shown to be alien to the idea of defending and upholding the rights of all citizens, including the right to freedom of speech.
This was not the first time that Farrugia’s deeply flawed way of thinking and behaviour unmasked his true beliefs and motives.
In August 2020, Farrugia joined forces with Labour MPs to ensure that Joseph Muscat faces no punishment for committing a serious ethical breach by accepting expensive gifts from Yorgen Fenech, the man accused of conspiring to murder journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
In January 2021, Farrugia again shielded Muscat from parliamentary scrutiny by ruling that he could not be summoned by the Standards Committee to be questioned on his role in the granting of a consultancy contract to the disgraced Konrad Mizzi to the tune of €90,000.
In March 2021, Farrugia, acting in cahoots with Labour MPs, opposed and ruled against the publication of a report on the detention of journalists at Castille back in November 2019.
In April 2021, Farrugia again maliciously stalled the adoption of a report which had found OPM Minister Carmelo Abela in breach of ethical standards when he used public funds to run a series of advertisements in local print media, costing in excess of €7,000.
Just two weeks ago, Farrugia voted against a proposal for Cutajar to be suspended for one month from the House after the standards commissioner found her in breach of ethical standards when failing to declare a whopping €40,000 from a property deal for Yorgen Fenech.
Anġlu Farrugia has repeatedly compromised the Speaker’s position in the House- Karol Aquilina
Instead, he voted with Labour MPs to close the case and let Cutajar go with a mere slap on the hand, a sanction that did not even materialise.
During the past four years alone, Farrugia also ruled against a myriad of requests put forward by the opposition for the House to hold emergency debates on various subjects.
These subjects included the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia (October 23, 2017), the revelation that Yorgen Fenech was the owner of 17 Black (November 25, 2019), the government crisis (November 26, 2019) and the Covid-19 pandemic (March 12, 2020).
According to Farrugia, nothing is ever worthy of an urgent debate in the House. Now we urgently need to debate Labour’s Speaker in the House.
Perhaps the Speaker’s shameful attitude was best exemplified when in June 2020 he turned down a proposal put forward by the opposition to name a hall inside parliament building after murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
In the Speaker’s view, the request could be perceived as eroding the impartiality of the House of Representatives. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
Farrugia has repeatedly compromised the Speaker’s position in the House by basing his biased decisions on inexistent parliamentary procedure and defying and deliberately misquoting the Erskine May, also referred to as the Bible of parliamentary procedure.
In essence, Farrugia has consistently behaved like a government lapdog. He has been unable to exercise the bare minimum level of self-restraint and invariably behaved like a diehard Labour apologist whose only aim in life is to keep Labour, Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela in government.
Anġlu Farrugia has manifestly failed the people of Malta.
Karol Aquilina is PN spokesperson on justice.