The Nationalist Party has presented a Private Member’s Bill in Parliament to change the composition of the Standards in Public Life Committee and allow former parliamentarians to be placed under the committee’s scrutiny for ethical breaches.
Opposition Leader Bernard Grech had made the first suggestion last Monday and the PN has now tabled a bill outlining the proposed changes.
Currently, the committee is made up of two PN MPs, two PL MPs and the Speaker of the House as the Chairman with a casting vote.
The proposal would mean that the committee would no longer be chaired by the Speaker of the House. Instead, the committee’s chairperson would not be an MP and would be chosen through a 2/3rds Parliamentary majority. Another two committee members, who will also not be MPs, would also be chosen through a 2/3rds Parliamentary majority.
The Prime Minister would then select one MP to sit on the committee and the Opposition will do the same, thus meaning that the committee will still have five members.
“In this way, we will have peace of mind that people with integrity whose only interest is that of the republic, the people and the country, will take decisions on the material that comes before them,” he said.
The second part of the proposal would see the definition of who falls under the scrutiny of the committee and the Commissioner change to also include former MPs, former Ministers, former Parliamentary Secretaries and former Parliamentary Assistants. it is this newsroom’s understanding that the Commissioner would still be unable to investigate any issues that popped up before the setting up of his office.
Grech said that in order to improve democracy, “which is easily threatened as it was over the past years in different ways, we need to improve the way our parliament functions.”
He stressed that it is unacceptable to have the government try and go around decisions taken by the Standards Commissioner, thereby weakening the office. “If we tolerate it, we will weaken our democracy, and allow politicians, ministers, Prime Ministers not to be held accountable for their actions.”
Grech said that despite him having brought up the first bit of this proposal on Monday, there has yet to be any reaction by the government.
PN MP Karol Aquilina, who sits on the Standards Committee, further explained the reasoning behind the introduction of this bill. “We have now experienced how this committee actually functioned over the past years. We have seen one case after another where, due to the committee’s composition, decisions are either not taken or people found guilty of a breach of the ethical code by the Standards Commissioner are protected, even if the committee adopts a report.”
The aim of the bill is to reduce the number of MPs on the committee, he said, which would ensure impartiality as the majority would not be tied to one party or the other.
Looking at the Standards Committee in the UK, he said, “they have a large number of people who are not parliamentarians on it.”
Aquilina said that the change in definition proposal as to who falls under the Act came about due to a ruling Speaker Anglu Farrugia had delivered regarding Joseph Muscat who had resigned at the time.
PN Whip Robert Cutajar said that the Opposition is doing its bit to improve the credibility of Parliament. He said that culture of anything goes, “unfortunately has also entered into this institution.”
PN MP Therese Comodini Cachia, who also sits on the Standards Committee, said that “we are strengthening the code of ethics by assuring that the Commissioner, when finding an MP guilty of a breach, will see the report respected and the committee will do its job with just one thing in mind, protecting the public interest.”
PN Deputy Leader David Agius said that he hopes the government accepts or reacts to the proposal.