Hypocrisy – Billy Connolly reminds us – is the vaseline of political intercourse. But perhaps even Connolly might have been taken aback by the slipperiness displayed in parliament when, in Monday’s debate, Robert Abela exerted himself for the benefit of Anġlu Farrugia.
The opposition wanted a vote of no confidence in the Speaker after he failed to act on a decision, by the parliamentary standards committee, to issue a stern reprimand to the Labour MP Rosianne Cutajar. It was a resolution that Farrugia himself had voted for.
No one expected Labour to vote against Farrugia. But Abela’s arguments managed to tarnish the dignity of parliament even more than Farrugia had already done.
First, the prime minister ignored parliament’s autonomy. He proclaimed that Cutajar, in not declaring a gift from Yorgen Fenech, had already paid the necessary penalty by resigning her post as junior minister.
That, however, was the penalty she paid for bringing the executive branch of government into disrepute. It’s separable from the reparations she, as backbencher, owes the legislative branch.
It was parliament’s rules that she flouted when she didn’t declare the gift.
It was parliament’s standards commissioner, who believes she lied to him, that she insulted. And, at her appearance before the parliamentary committee, already a backbencher, she continued to show no regrets.
Next, the prime minister ignored the parliamentary standards committee. He reopened the question of whether Cutajar deserved to be sanctioned when the committee, Labour MPs included, had already decided that she did.
With the Speaker’s support, the Labour MPs whittled the sanction down to a minimum. Yet, Abela spoke as though he didn’t accept even that minimum as fair.
Third, if Abela cared for parliament’s dignity, then he, together with all Labour MPs, should have been livid at the Speaker. The decision to reprimand Cutajar was, officially, as much a decision by Labour as by the Nationalist MPs. The Speaker just ignored them.
Unless, of course, the Labour MPs never meant even to reprimand Cutajar. In this scenario, they only agreed to it because they felt that, publicly, they couldn’t afford not to; they knew they could rely on the Speaker not to execute the decision.
In this legislature, we have had multiple instances of MPs, mired in scandal, being protected by the very institution they had damaged- Ranier Fsadni
Fourth, with his defence, Abela has embraced Cutajar’s behaviour. Her standards, vis-a-vis parliament, are now officially Labour’s.
It’s parliament that gives its members the right to be called ‘honourable’ but it’s striking how dishonourably they treat it. Konrad Mizzi, too, has recently displayed contempt for parliament as such; it went unremarked.
He appeared before the public accounts committee and told the opposition members they had no right to judge him. Everyone noted the personal insult; yet no one – not even the opposition – remarked about the contempt he showed for parliament. The right that all PAC members have to judge him is given by parliament itself – no other authority is needed.
In the US, a four-star general who jeers at the Senate’s armed services committee, telling its members they have no right to judge him because they never entered battle, would quickly be cut down to size and face sanctions. In Malta, Mizzi’s contempt for the highest institution (not just the individual members) went unremarked by the Speaker, by the government members and by the very people insulted.
Parliamentary standards were never high but they’re deteriorating before our eyes. Abela boasted that it was his government that set up the standards committee, not the opposition. True, but under a Nationalist government, in 1994, no standards committee was needed for an MP to resign his seat instantly when discovered to have an undeclared overseas bank account.
(Before anyone mentions Austin Gatt once more: his Swiss bank account, inherited from his parents and declared to the taxman but not to parliament, was made public during a general election campaign when he had already ceased to be an MP.)
Instead, now we have a standards committee whose word is meaningless. Around six years ago, Labour was sputtering with outrage at the revelations that the then-MP Joe Cassar (PN) had received a “gift” worth roughly the same amount that Cutajar received from Fenech.
Labour insisted that resignation from parliament was the only commensurate penalty to pay. Cassar protested his innocence and strongly hinted he had been set up to be smeared. But such was Labour’s onslaught that he resigned anyway.
Now, apparently, it’s an outrage even to demand that Cutajar be suspended for a month for accepting a gift of the same value under more scandalous circumstances.
Instead of lessons being learned, the abuse of parliament grows. In the 2013-2017 legislature, we had one clamorous case of the Labour parliamentary group defending a minister, Mizzi, who in any self-respecting parliament would have been made to resign. In this legislature, we have had multiple instances of MPs, mired in scandal, being protected by the very institution they had damaged.
That’s not déjà vu. It’s deterioration, made worse when the Speaker, the ultimate custodian of parliament’s dignity, contributes to it.
Labour has no electoral need to defend Cutajar to the hilt. The opinion polls show it’s coasting towards a landslide victory. It defends Cutajar simply to send a clear message: when we’re in power, no one – no authority, no institution – can hold us accountable. The party owns them all.