PN MP Simon Busuttil has amended a statement he made about the Prime Minister last week after a ruling by the Speaker.
During a speech last week, Busuttil said the Prime Minister had only called for a magisterial inquiry into the Egrant allegations “once he had made sure that all evidence had disappeared.”
In a ruling on Monday, Speaker Anglu Farrugia asked Busuttil to withdraw or amend that part of his speech.
The Speaker said, however, that Busuttil was not in breach of standing orders when he expressed his continuing belief that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat owned Egrant.
The ruling was requested by Government Whip Byron Camilleri, who said Busuttil was breaching standing orders when attributing a bad intention to another MP.
The Speaker said there was a fine line between normal political bickering and breach of privilege.
Ferrugia also noted that during Busuttil’s adjournment speech there were constant disruptions by government MPs. The Speaker warned that the Point of Order procedure should not be abused and used to stop MPs from expressing their views. MPs cannot call for a Point of Order only to reply to what is being said – replies can be given at the appropriate time at a later stage. He said such abuse would not be tolerated.
He said that MPs should be allowed to express their views but should do so with respect to the rules.
Reacting, Busuttil said he would accept the ruling and proceeded to amend the offending part of his speech. He said that the fact that the PM called for an inquiry at 1am, and the fact that the police had taken hours to act, raised suspicion.
Later during the sitting, Economy Minister Chris Cardona requested protection from the Speaker over a comment made by PN MP Jason Azzopardi on Twitter.
In the tweet, posted on the day of the heated parliamentary debate, Azzopardi had said: “This evening one could see how the corrupt, those who eat kirxa with killers behave: he disrupts those who would reveal his lies and deceit.”
This, Cardona said, was a clear prima facie breach of parliamentary privilege.
Reacting, Azzopardi said he had not named any names. Therefore, how did Cardona conclude that he (Azzopardi) was referring to him?
The heated debate took place a day after the Daphne Project alleged that Cardona had attended a 40-person bachelor party that was also attended by Alfred Degiorgio – one of the three men accused of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder.