It is becoming increasingly clear that it is not only the independent media which struggle to continue doing their duty in a democratic society, by giving the people the information they have a right to. The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life is worried about attempts to suppress publication of his reports.
George Hyzler has now rightly decided that enough is enough and, in a letter to Speaker Anġlu Farrugia insisted that the decision on whether and when to publish a report rests with him and not the Parliamentary Committee on Standards in Public Life.
Two years ago, the commissioner and the committee had reached an “understanding” whereby reports about cases of misconduct would be forwarded to the committee first. It seems the committee wanted such an arrangement “as a safeguard of the right to privacy of the individual investigated”.
Of course, standards in public life are not raised by trying to hide politicians’ sins, especially ones of commission, on the pretext of invasion of privacy, but by ensuring full accountability and transparency.
Though the two government MPs sitting on parliament’s permanent committee handling such matters say they want the reports to be published, their attitude proves otherwise.
They have shown, time and again, that protecting their colleagues and avoiding embarrassment to the government matters more than raising the bar.
The latest such episode, involving OPM Minister Carmelo Abela, was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The standards commissioner now admits that the “inexplicable delay” in publishing his reports worry him.
In fact, he told the speaker he feels the “understanding” reached between him and the committee two years ago “is creating unnecessary polemics and gives rise to unfounded suspicions that reflect negatively on my office and yours”.
He fears that the arrangement even hampers the committee’s work, goes against the principle of transparency his office was set up to uphold and has no basis at law.
“What effectively amounts to the suppression of reports,” Hyzler continues, “can be interpreted as an attempt to undermine parliament in its efforts ro raise standards in public life through the setting up of this office.”
What spurred Hyzler to express such fears so openly was the decision by the government members to boycott a committee sitting when the Abela report was to be discussed on grounds that its findings had been leaked.
They did attend the next meeting, last Wednesday, and even agreed to the publication of the report in which Hyzler found Abela had breached ethical standards when he ran a number of adverts on the print media that did not provide “information of value” to the public but only boosted the minister’s image.
At that meeting, they again declared they are not against the publication of the standards commissioner’s report but that they want to ensure the committee’s work is not stultified.
That, no doubt, is what the standards commissioner and, indeed, all citizens, still shell-shocked by what they have been hearing about certain so-called politicians over the past weeks and months, want to hear.
Therefore, in their meeting this week, when Hyzler is expected to attend, they should lose no time in agreeing to drop the “understanding” they had reached and unequivocally declare that the standards commissioner, and the standards commissioner alone, has the right to decide if and when to publish his reports.
In turn, for the sake of transparency and accountability, the standards commissioner should put everybody’s mind at rest that, forthwith, all his reports will be published once completed.