Government will be changing the party financing law just after ten months in existence in order to give the Labour Party a second chance to register itself, Deputy Leader of the PL and Economy Minister Chris Cardona confirmed on INDEPTH which will be available on www.independent.com.mt this Friday and later distributed to FLiving TV and Campus FM.
Minister Cardona conceded that government needs to issue a legal notice to amend the law after the PL holds its national conference in which it will make the necessary changes to its statute to be able to register with the electoral commission.
Speaking to TMI's Director of Content , Pierre Portelli, he insisted that the PL was first to file in an application but the Electoral Commission demanded changes to the PL's statute for it to conform with the party financing law. Such changes were not affect within the period stipulated by law and the PL remains the sole party in Malta defying the historic new legislation which it pioneered.
As things stand, the casual election which saw Clifton Grima taking Leo Brincat's parliamentary seat last October could be legally challenged and possibly nulled because of the Labour party's failure to comply with the Party Financing Law which required every political party currently in existence in Malta to register with the Electoral Commission by the end of last year.
Visibly uncomfortable with the topic, during INDEPTH, Economy Minister and PL Deputy Leader Chris Cardona, squirmed around the issue claiming that the Labour Party has been in existence from many years, thus the Electoral Commission couldn't but accept the nomination back in October, when the PL was still not registered according to the law. But the PL is technically still 'non-existent' and in clear breach of the party financing law.
During the programme, Minister Cardona was pressed to declare whether or not this was a ploy by the PL to be able to sort undeclared donations it received from big business before it registers itself with the Electoral Commission. Deputy Leader Cardona denied such wrong doing and shifted the argument onto the Nationalist Party who is currently under investigation by the Electoral Commission over claims by DB Group that 'donations' in the tune of €70,000 were disguised as commercial transactions.
On INDEPTH, Chris Cardona was asked to explain his lifestyle habits pending allegations by journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that he frequented a brothel while in Germany on government and EU work. The Minister took legal action including the issuance of the controversial garnishee warrant, a first and possibly a last, taken against journalists in a libel case. The Minister said on INDEPTH that he stood in favour of the removal of such garnishee warrants against journalists as proposed by Government in the new media bill currently discussed in Parliament but not in the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia. He insisted that he has no regrets over his actions and carries a clean conscience on the matter.