Speaker Anglu Farrugia decided not to go ahead with the Standards Committee meeting regarding the reported ethics breach of Minister Carmelo Abela this morning as PL members didn’t show up.

Farrugia said that he cannot continue with the hearing if members from government are not there, and rescheduled it to take place next Wednesday.

He said he was following procedure.

“When they want to, with the most disrespect this committee, they decide to not attend… they just say they’re not going to attend on media and decided not to come,” PN MP Therese Commodini Cachia said.

“This was a strategy; they just wrote a letter to the speaker and decide to not show up… it has to show that now every time that there is a report from the Standards Committee, they come up with a strategy to not show up.”

PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami echoed Comodini Cachia, while also saying that the speaker should be considered as a member.

“To have two members who block the works of this committee, in a state of emergency, is disrespectful,” Fenech Adami said.

Labour MPs have asked for an investigation by the Speaker into leaks from the Standards in Public Life Parliamentary Committee. 

In a statement on Thursday, Labour MPs Edward Zammit Lewis and Glen Bedingfield lamented that a report issued by Standards Commissioner George Hyzler had been leaked. 

Reports are supposed to remain secret until they are discussed by the committee when the Commissioner, it was argued.

The statement was referring to a Newsbook article published on Thursday morning, which stated that a report by the Standards Commissioner found minister Carmelo Abela in breach of ethical standards by using public funds to pay for newspaper adverts promoting himself. 

 

PN statement

In a statement, the PN MPs who form part of the committee, Karol Aquilina and Therese Comodini Cachia, said their government counterparts had chosen to abdicate their duty and pin the blame on journalists.  

Instead of ensuring that good governance is respected by having the committee publish the Standards Commissioner’s report and inviting him for a debate, they chose to hinder and stop the debate, the PN MPs said.

“After first delaying the committee sitting, they chose to boycott today’s sitting with the excuse that journalists had exposed what they wanted to hide.”

This was part of a series of manoeuvres that have long been used to shut down debates on reports prepared by the Standards Commissioner, they said. In every such meeting, the government MPs are acting against the people and in favour of secrecy and abuse of public finances, the PN MPs said.

 

PL statement

Reacting, the Labour Party said the PN would only be taken seriously when it starts respecting the authorities and not only use them for political gain.

Standards in public life require that a Parliamentary Committee is respected, not hindered from discussing and deliberating according to established procedures.  

While journalists have a right to seek information, politicians also have a duty to respect the institutions they work in.

The Opposition cannot be credible because it uses these same institutions for political gain, it said.