A parliamentary committee on Tuesday adopted a report by the Standards Commissioner which concluded that Labour MP and former minister Michael Farrugia breached ethics by giving the media wrong information.
During a Standards Committee meeting, Nationalist MPs Mark Anthony Sammut and Ryan Callus voted in favour of adopting the report, while government MPs abstained.
The vote passed in favour.
The committee will decide how to sanction Farrugia during its next sitting,
According to the law, an MP found in breach of ethics can be sanctioned by being reprimanded, being ordered to apologise, demanding repayments, or any other measure parliament deems fit.
PL whip Andy Ellul said government MPs were abstaining as they could not reach a conclusive verdict without first hearing Farrugia’s submission to the committee.
In August, the Standards Commissioner found that former minister Michael Farrugia breached ethical standards by giving the wrong information to Times of Malta about the way Mrieħel was included as a high-rise building zone.
Times of Malta revealed how Farrugia ordered the Planning Authority to allow high-rise developments in Mireħel on the same day of a meeting between himself and Tumas magnate Yorgen Fenech in 2014.
In a letter to the authority’s CEO, Farrugia instructed: “Mrieħel is to be considered as an appropriate location for tall buildings with the intention to create a strategic employment node.”
Farrugia was junior minister responsible for planning at the time. Fenech had a financial interest in the Mrieħel decision as an investor in the Quad project alongside the Gasan family.
Activist Arnold Cassola had subsequently filed a request for the issue to be probed by parliament's standards commissioner.
At the beginning of Tuesday's meeting, Sammut said the committee should probe further into the case and continue investigating until it obtained "satisfactory" replies.
Ellul argued that the committee could only probe further if the commissioner's investigation was inconclusive.
Speaker Anġlu Farrugia, who serves as the committee's chair, said the commissioner’s investigation was sufficient.