Speaker Anglu Farrugia has used his deciding vote against the adoption of a report that found 18 ministers in breach of ethical standards during taxpayer-funded advertisements that praised themselves.

Last year, ex-Commissioner for Standards in Public Life George Hyzler said a supplement published in the Labour Party’s newspaper to mark Robert Abela's second year as prime minister constituted misuse of public funds. 

Abela featured prominently on the front page of the supplement. 

Hyzler's report recommended the return of the €16,700 spent on the advertising campaign.

His probe found that 28 pages were taken up by government adverts extolling the achievements of ministries and their entities, in breach of the Standards Commissioner’s guidelines on advertising.

Hyzler said that while the newspaper had the right to publish a supplement of this nature, the ministers concerned should not have spent public funds to support it as this was a lack of separation between the role of minister and member of a political party, constituting misuse of public funds.

However, when the Committee for Standards in Public Life voted on Wednesday on whether to adopt the report, two government members voted against and two opposition members voted for.

This meant that decision was up to the Speaker, who held the casting vote.

He voted against the adoption of the report saying that the current guidelines, which the Commissioner referred to in his report, were not part of the law. Farrugia further justified his decision by saying that the casting vote practice was that, whenever possible, this should be in favour of the continuation of the debate delaying a decision until there is majority support. (See Speaker's explanation in full in attached pdf below)

In a statement on Thursday, the PN said this showed the government was continuing with a "culture of impunity" that rendered the current ministerial code of ethics "irrelevant and unsanctionable". 

With this motivation, which the PN said was not intended to apply to the Standards Committee, the Speaker was saying that in such cases he would always be voting against the adoption of such reports.

The PN pointed out that when a similar report had been taken on an expenditure of €7,000 in adverts by former minister Carmelo Abela, the Speaker had abstained saying there were no guidelines on ministerial advertising. 

This confirmed the importance of the PN’s Public Member’s Bill proposal to change the structure of the Standards Committee so that it is no longer led by the Speaker and to have within it people from outside the House. It was important that this proposal came into effect as soon as possible, the party insisted.

It said that the Speaker’s action on Wednesday was a slap in the face to standards in public life.