Earlier this week, Speaker Michael Frendo justifiably felt aggrieved by a leader in the GWU daily l-orizzont in which he was called a ‘Nationalist Speaker’ and much else besides.

As he made clear in a statement in Parliament, Mr Speaker was not amused. He demanded an apology and reserved all rights to action on the offending leader.

Mr Speaker is right: The Speaker is not a party person.

In this case too, Mr Speaker was also aggrieved because his brother, Professor Henry Frendo, was also mentioned in not very complimentary tones.

While approving his angry reaction, we would also have liked the Chair to be vigilant when names of people outside the House are mentioned and slurs cast when these same persons have no means to defend themselves.

A Parliament that is vigilant about its privileges must also be vigilant that Members do not hide behind the privileges to cast stones at people who cannot reply in kind.

It is so easy for an MP to say something while being protected by parliamentary privilege and yet is not able, it would seem, to repeat what was said outside the House where the MP in question cannot be protected by parliamentary immunity.

The intention behind parliamentary immunity is definitely not to allow an MP to hide and make irresponsible statements and charges that would not normally be allowed to be made in a democracy that respects itself.

To go back a few years, there was a time when Lawrence Gonzi was Speaker and Lorry Sant the maverick in the House. Even then, Dr Gonzi was not prompt enough to stop the late Mr Sant from making all kinds of conjectures and charges not just against a couple who had almost been killed by a bomb at their house in Sliema but also about his former mentor, Dom Mintoff himself.

But history also tells us that Dr Gonzi later stood up to Mr Sant and even had him removed from the House when he (Mr Sant) did not want to desist.

It is useless, or almost, to speak of the completion of the new Parliament building and its functioning, to speak of direct transmission via webcam of parliamentary or committee sittings, to speak of a more autonomous Parliament in the management of its own affairs, if the MPs are then not able to be responsible enough in their use of what the country and its Constitution have given them not as a privilege to be abused of, nor as means to carry out their private acts of vengeance, but as means to act in defence of the national interest.

It is certainly not in defence of the national interest to be able to state things that, if uttered outside, would definitely lead to the institution of libel proceedings.

It is then even more shameful that it was the MP who has been most agitating for stiffer libel penalties to have been the one to abuse of his parliamentary freedom in this manner.