The Right of Reply from Labour Party Whip Joe Mizzi published in today’s issue a few pages before this defeats the very purpose of the legal mechanism provided by the country’s Press Act. It aims to give a person or entity who feels they have been wronged in some way by the media their legitimate right to state their case and to clear up erroneous reporting, but Mr Mizzi’s reply simply raises more questions than it answers.

But, at the end of the day, there is really no need to invoke the land’s press laws in this case – most of those in power at the Labour Party know full well that we are fair, sometimes to a fault, and that would we have published Mr Mizzi’s replies in full with or without us being required to do so by law.

While Mr Mizzi has replied, at great length, to some of what was published in last week’s article, Records show parliamentary pay rises far from ‘stealthy’, it is what he has neglected to reply to that is most indicative of all.

The main crux of the article was, in fact, the fact that he and another long-standing Labour parliamentarian had both referred to ministers’ salary increments in Parliament and in plain Maltese in early 2009, despite declaring they knew nothing of the increments until last December.

For the sake of being perfectly clear, we will repeat those statements once again this week:

During Parliamentary Question time on 4 February 2009, Labour Whip Joe Mizzi, exasperated by the failure of Finance Minister Tonio Fenech to reply directly to a question tabled, had stated, “Ministers are going backwards instead of forward since they received an extra remuneration as Members of Parliament.”

Five days later, on 9 February, Labour MP George Vella, during the now infamous procedural motion debate, said, “…even more so now that the Prime Minister has chosen to give an extra salary to ministers as Members of Parliament, because he said they are also serving a parliamentary function. So we expect them to be here to give their contribution, especially during the time allocated to Parliamentary Questions.”

Both comments, as we pointed out last week, confirm knowledge of a fact rather than knowledge of a mere suggestion of pay increases for Cabinet members as has been claimed.

Mr Mizzi, however, preferred to completely ignore the publication of the statements. While taking his arguments on the details of the Welfare Committee document referred to in the article fully on board, we also have to say that political and legal experts we spoke to yesterday were not wholly convinced by the argumentation, but there will more of that next week unless all involved parties consider the issue at hand as having now been put to rest.

What Mr Mizzi also chose to ignore were the allegations made by fellow MP Philip Mifsud, who has stated in this newspaper and another that the subject matter had been discussed while on parliamentary business abroad.

But, truth be told, both the Welfare Committee document as well and Mr Mifsud’s allegations had already been printed in other media and they were merely secondary to the article in question – the overriding crux of the article were those comments made in Parliament, which Mr Mizzi has not deemed it fit to reply to.

By no means should last week’s article be misconstrued as being apologist toward the Cabinet’s salary increment. As we said last week in these same columns:

“The timing of the increases in both MPs’ as well as Cabinet’s salaries was poor. The decision had been taken just after the 2008 general election, when the Nationalist Party had made the then impending recession a central electoral argument – in that the government’s ‘proven sound fiscal policy’ was the only way forward in the troubled times ahead that were being forecast.

“With hindsight it would have been far more advisable to have approved the raises, waited out the recession and once it passed, and then and only then, implement them – and implement both MPs’ and Cabinet’s salary increases in tandem.

“Perhaps ministers deserve the same treatment as other MPs who, similarly, have government jobs, as is being argued by the Prime Minister. Why shouldn’t a government employee, in this case a minister or parliamentary secretary, have the same remuneration conditions as an MP in that they receive a parliamentary salary as well as their full time public sector wage.

“On the other hand, serious thought needs to be given to the concept of linking the honoraria paid to MPs for their parliamentary work to their actual parliamentary attendance. When an MP is a no show for a parliamentary hearing, why should he or she still be paid for it?”

We must also note our exception taken to Mr Mizzi’s insinuations of this newspaper being a Nationalist Party offshoot - our track record, as he knows well, tells a different story. He has not said that in so many words but the insinuation is clearly there.

As a fully independent newspaper – not only in name but, more importantly, in ethos – we have a love/hate relationship with both of the country’s main political parties. We call a spade a spade - we make no apologies for that and we will continue to do so without fear or favour from either party.