One of the first debates to take place next week in the newly elected Parliament will be that concerning the appointment of a Commissioner for Standards in Public Life.

This is a big step in a country like Malta where standards are deliberately ignored on a national level, let alone amongst those in public life.

The new Commissioner for Standards in Public Life will face the tough challenge to establish her/his authority and to occupy territory, which so far has neither been claimed nor sought by anyone.

We have grown to be accustomed to sweeping statements on ethics and standards but as a nation we follow the unwritten code of ‘turning a blind eye’. This national practice, of ignoring standards, gives us an unwritten code of conduct, which we commonly follow.

We lash at the lack of standards in public life when it is convenient to us while we allow ourselves to not follow what we preach because there is no such written rule. It gives us the opportunity to be cynical and hypocritical without being unlawful.

Well, the excuses we’ve employed so far will soon hold water any more, for not only has the bill gone through Parliament but we are also to have a Commissioner for Standards in public life by the end of the month.

While the new Commissioner will have to assert the required authority, a mammoth task lies ahead to bring the concept, let alone the regulations, into people’s lives. For years to come, the new Commissioner, and those that will follow in the role, will have to face a culture whereby standards in public life do not exist let alone are adhered to.

This doesn’t mean that we are a rotten nation, privy of any morals and ethical fibre. The people of these islands have so far managed to get along without subscribing to a set of written rules that dictate how public life should be regulated. Changing that culture to one where public figures need to regulate their conduct according to a set of rules will be the first and biggest challenges facing the new Commissioner.

We have just emerged from a brutal electoral campaign in which one leader, assuming that politics are rotten to the core, claimed he wanted to clean the system while the other one countered, after the result was out, that people have voted to believe and retain the incumbent. How the new Commissioner for Standards intends to address this dilemma is purely up to the appointee however it gives an indication of how difficult the task ahead is going to be.

It will be interesting to live in Malta, post 2017, with a Commissioner for Standards in Public Life that is bound to examine, and if  necessary  verify,  declarations relating to income or assets or other interest orbenefits of whatever nature of persons to whom this Act applieswho  are  under  a  duty  to  file  such  declarations  as  may  beprovided under this or any other law.

The new Commissioner will be expected to investigate on  her/his  initiative  or  on  the  writtenallegation of any person any matter alleged to be in breach ofany statutory or any ethical duty of any person in public life.

We sincerely hope that a super-hero is to be found to take this role and wish that person all the courage and determination needed. Our morale decreases when we remind ourselves of the efforts made by the Ombudsman and the Auditor General throughout the past years. They have produced volumes of investigations and reports but has the political class listened? Did the people push their representatives to take heed of their reports? Instead we have witnessed attacks on these functionaries followed by sheer indifference towards their work, their role and their function.

Hope is the last to die, we will not give up.