Anglu Farrugia has served as Speaker of Malta’s Parliament ever since the Labour Party came to power in 2013.

The Speaker’s position is meant to be one of great impartiality, yet on a number of occasions we have seen him act not as the impartial leader of Parliament’s chambers but as a gatekeeper for the the government.

This newspaper has in the past detailed various occasions in the last decade when Farrugia’s decisions have prompted criticism that he was favouring the government by trying to cover up its mishaps.

Be it rejected parliamentary questions on whether Joseph Muscat and Keith Schembri attending the wedding of the then chairman of Pilatus Bank because they were apparently not in the public interest, or by refusing urgent discussions on topics of discomfort for the government, Farrugia has consistently been criticised for taking the government’s side and perpetuating the impunity associated with the last decade.

The latest act in these series of acts has come in the Standards Committee. Last week, the Speaker voted against the adoption of a report by former Standards Commissioner George Hyzler which found that 18 government ministers had breached parliamentary ethics by using over €16,000 in public funds for overtly political advertising.

This is not the first time that Farrugia has had to decide on a standards investigation concerning a government MP who used public funds for political advertising.

In April 2021, he was faced with a Standards Commissioner report which had found then government minister Carmelo Abela in breach of parliamentary ethics over a newspaper advert which used public funds to boost the minister’s personal image rather than provide any information of use to the public.

Farrugia ended up having the casting vote after a stalemate developed between the government and the opposition on whether to adopt the report.

Farrugia said that while he agreed with certain conclusions reached by the report, namely that Abela’s photograph on the advert was too prominent and that guidelines on adverts should be drafted going forward, he did not feel there was a breach of ethical guidelines and thus decided to abstain from voting.

As a result, the report was not adopted and Abela was allowed to go off scot free without facing any sanctions – or without having to refund the €7,000 or so of public funds spent on the advert.

Fast forward to the present day, Farrugia’s justification for voting against Hyzler report into this new breach of advertising regulations – and it should be noted that, guidelines on political advertising have been drafted and implemented by the Standards office – was that the guidelines on adverts were not part of the law.

Such reasoning has set the precedent for any form of guideline which is set by any authority wanting to regulate how those who work within it should act.  By the same reasoning, it would render – for example – workplace guidelines for how to act as not being worth the paper they are written on, because they are not part of the law.

The interpretation is nothing short of bizarre, and another example of how much is being done to undermine and place obstacles for the Standards Commissioner to carry out the work necessary to ensure that all MPs follow the standards which should be expected of them as public officials.

Maybe it should come as little surprise that the interpretation favoured the government.

Perhaps rather than addressing Anglu Farrugia as Mr Speaker, we should start addressing him as Mr Gatekeeper.