A constitutional court has thrown out pleas by the Speaker of the House and chairperson of the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee in a case filed by Brian Tonna.
Tonna claimed that his rights were breached by a ruling ordering him to testify about the Electrogas power station tender.
After he was grilled by the parliamentary committee, Tonna filed constitutional proceedings claiming that his right to silence had been trampled upon and his rights to a fair hearing and to personal liberty breached both by the Speaker’s ruling as well as the hearings before the committee, which is chaired by Beppe Fenech Adami.
Tonna's lawyer Stephen Tonna Lowell argued that his client risked self-incrimination through his PAC testimony, as he had not yet been informed of the predicate offence underlying money laundering charges he faced.
Speaker Anġlu Farrugia and Fenech Adami then raised two pleas in which they argued that there were no legal grounds for Tonna to sue them.
They argued that the Speaker is not the legal representative of the House and that the committee chairperson did not have a juridical personality that was separate and distinct from Parliament.
The State is represented by the State Advocate, the respondents argued.
The Speaker was elected by the House while one of the Opposition members on the PAC was appointed to chair that committee.
Nothing precluding applicant from filing case against Speaker, chair
On Tuesday, Mr Justice Neville Camilleri, presiding over the First Hall, Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, delivered a preliminary judgment concerning those pleas.
The court noted that Tonna was suing the Speaker and PAC chair as “Speaker of the House of Representatives” and “Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee.”
As established in previous judgments such as those in cases filed by Frank Sammut, Francis Portelli and Tancred Tabone, the chair of the committee was responsible for conducting proceedings as well as executing any orders or directives issued by the Speaker.
The “Guide for Witnesses” appearing before the PAC also bound the Speaker who issued the final relevant decision and therefore, even for the purpose of rendering that decision effective, it was useful to have the Speaker as a party to the proceedings.
Both were thus legitimate respondents and there was nothing precluding the applicant from filing his case about the alleged breach of rights against the Speaker and the chairperson, concluded the court.
In light of such considerations expressed by the Constitutional Court in previous judgments, Mr Justice Camilleri dismissed the respondents’ pleas and ordered the case to proceed.