The casual elections may have led to the historic election of Malta’s first women MEPs, but the controversy surrounding one of them risks overshadowing them, for the time being.
The new MEPs include Claudette Abela Baldacchino, who is facing criminal proceedings over allegations of fraud, ironically at the EU’s expense.
She is one of nine people who were arraigned, early last year, over allegations that the Local Councils’ Association, in collusion with a travel company, had defrauded the European Commission of some €96,000 in travel expenses. She was the LCA’s vice-president at the time.
Predictably, the Labour Party has come out in defence of one of its own, while the Nationalist Party – largely through its deputy leader Simon Busuttil – has come out with all guns blazing.
In its defence, Labour pointed out the obvious: that the MEP, as anyone else facing court proceedings, is innocent until proven guilty.
Of course, the party sang a different tune when the oil procurement scandal broke out during the election campaign. Seven men have been arraigned, and all of them are to be presumed innocent so far and the politicians the party blamed by association even more so, since they face no criminal charges whatsoever.
Presumption of innocence notwithstanding, Labour was right to express its concerns about the case. But then again, so was Dr Busuttil this week, even though the allegations concerning Ms Abela Baldacchino are significantly less serious.
People may be innocent until proven guilty, but those seeking public office must not only be beyond reproach, but also appear to be so. Regrettably, until the case is concluded one way or another, this will not be the case with Ms Abela Baldacchino, who was prevented from contesting the latest Qrendi local council election as a consequence of the case.
She was eligible to contest the casual elections, for the simple reason that she was eligible to contest the 2009 European election in the first place. Whether she should have done so – and whether the party should have granted its blessing, even though it could not ultimately force her hand – is another matter entirely.
The immunity from prosecution granted to MEPs further complicates matters, as it can only be waived at the request of the competent authorities of the relevant member state. This alone could put the government in an uncomfortable situation, regardless of its actions.
Labour also argued that Dr Busuttil’s comments represented an old style of politics: such remarks verge on the ridiculous, especially coming from a party which preached increased accountability and transparency as it sought to be elected to government.
But while Dr Busuttil’s concerns may be legitimate, it is telling that neither the PN nor the PL had actually paid any attention to the fraud charges when they first surfaced last year, following investigations by the police and by EU anti-fraud agency OLAF.
These investigations had implicated six local councillors belonging to both parties – four of them, incidentally, were PN members. And a quick search confirms that neither the PN nor the PL’s news websites covered the story, even though each typically gives a lot of prominence to cases involving politicians – as long as they belong to the other party.
Innocent until proven guilty is a doubtful defence when public office is concerned: innocent until proven politically convenient even less so.