Editorial: Speaker’s put his foot in it... again

Every time a delicate matter emerges, and he is forced to make a formal pronouncement, parliamentary speaker Anġlu Farrugia tends to put his foot in it. His ‘survival’ instinct makes it imperative for him to act as the government’s gatekeeper rather than the holder of such high office.

There have been many instances when the lawyer and former senior police officer failed to preserve and promote the dignity of the office he has been occupying for a decade.

Determined not to embarrass the government – and, in the process, guaranteeing his own tenure of office – Farrugia has just voted against adopting a report finding 18 cabinet ministers in breach of ethical standards.

The report had been compiled by the former commissioner for standards in public life, George Hyzler.

It was about a supplement carried by Labour’s weekly KullĦadd marking the second anniversary of Robert Abela’s appointment as prime minister.

Hyzler concluded that the ministers who booked space promoting ministries or government entities should not have spent public funds to support the publication as this amounted to lack of separation between the role of minister and member of a political party, thus constituting misuse of public funds.

Twenty-eight of the 32 pages making up the supplement consisted of government adverts extolling the achievements of ministries and their entities, in breach of the standards commissioner’s guidelines on advertising.

Among other things, Hyzler, who was conveniently shifted to the European Court of Auditors, recommended that the €16,700 spent on the advertising campaign be returned.

Adopting the report and endorsing recommendations would have put the big bulk of the cabinet in the soup. When a vote was taken in the parliamentary committee for standards in public life a few days ago, there was a tie: the two government MPs were against and the Nationalist representatives wanted to move ahead.

Through his casting vote, the speaker had the final word. Rather than opting to raise the bar, Farrugia – after making a lengthy explanation that sounded more like advice coming from Sir Humphrey Appleby than from a legal and constitutional expert – joined the government MPs.

Among the reasons he mentioned to justify his nay, Farrugia said guidelines mentioned in the commissioner’s report were not part of the law. He also said the casting vote practice was that, whenever possible, it should favour the continuation of a debate and delay a decision until there is majority support.

Of course, the speaker overlooked the fact that, in his report, the former standards commissioner noted that, prior to the KullĦadd supplement, ministers abided by his guidelines. Quid tacet consentit (silence implies consent).

The speaker could have, therefore, voted for the adoption of the report and then press for the guidelines to become law. That would have meant the debate could continue.

Hyzler had successfully called for his report to be published “for the sake of transparency”, which Farrugia does not seem to fully understand the meaning of.

Pity he had a golden opportunity to prove he could practise what he had preached in a meeting between the standards committee and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) earlier this month.

“… We need to upgrade the code of ethics, we need to make it stronger and that has to be done as quickly as possible in order to upgrade the standards,” he had declared.

His latest casting vote proves that was just hogwash and a setback to further raise standards in public life.