Democracy rests on the concept that power resides in the people, and that the people’s business is administered by consent.
Democratic government emerges from free elections, where the party (or parties) winning a parliamentary majority become the governing party. The party in opposition scrutinises the executive from its parliamentary vantage point.
The business of the government calls for a professional civil service operating under the responsibility of diverse ministers.
Taken in the mass, this complex machine could be cumbersome. For a start, it has no detailed roadmap. It navigates by a distant star, which is as nebulous as it is banal: civil servants are accountable to ministers, ministers are accountable to parliament.
“Accountability” has proved to be a hazy concept, practically meaning all things to all men.
Like chewing gum, the concept is liable to stretching. It may depend very much on the personality of ministers – the prime minister of the day in particular.
Be it as it may, in the Malta context, the term “accountability” has never been properly defined, much less encoded, in the statute book of public administration. The so-called “culture of resignations” is very much a foreign concept.
There are two basic propositions on accountability: ministers, not officials, are accountable for policy; and officials’ advice to ministers is and should remain confidential. In other words, ministers are responsible and accountable for all actions carried out by public servants in pursuit of government policies or the discharge of responsibilities laid on them by parliament.
There are, moreover, separate codes of ethics for ministers and civil servants which have a lot to say about what is desirable and hardly anything about their enforcement.
That said, this is where firm reality ends and where vagueness and complexity begin to merge.
There have been very many instances where ministers in successive and different governments were given black marks by their critics in parliament or in the media. There have been charges of nepotism, political partisanship and outright corruption. There have been various instances where ministers were accused of riding roughshod on the rights of citizens, civil society and, indeed, of parliament.
The politicians concerned were, at times, verbally defended by the prime minister of the day or exculpated by their party media in heated polemics.
The core issue of accountability has never been properly debated and reduced to an agreed and binding code of conduct. Public affairs in Malta have yet to be raised to a level where the business of the government – any government – could be conducted above reproach, in conditions of transparency, under independent auspices to the satisfaction of all.
Is it not inconceivable that it has taken so long to see any action that would establish the accountability of anybody who is alleged to have distributed pirated CDs during a political activity held under the auspices of a minister.
Isn’t there a case for determining, one way or the other, whether a minister is accountable and held to be politically responsible, if his canvassers have to answer serious charges of corruption and extortion in a public agency falling within his bailiwick?
This general issue of accountability and responsibility goes beyond mere political correctness.
It elevates the discussion to the level of political maturity, and the wholesome integrity of politics.
In the final analysis, no government has ever been beneficent if its prime concern is to look after its interests and its people. The only freedom consists in the people taking care of the government!