A recommendation put forward by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) would see the Speaker replaced by a retired judge on Parliament’s standards committee, while the group would be bolstered by four non-MPs.

The recommendation came as part of a project between the Office of the Standards Commissioner, the European Commission, and the OECD to raise standards in public life and improve transparency in Maltese politics.

The standards committee has been a controversial issue since its inception a few years back, mainly because of its limited powers and the way it is set up.

Currently, the committee is made up of four MPs – two from the government side and two from the Opposition – and it is chaired by the Speaker, Anglu Farrugia. The latter has often been accused of siding with the Labour MPs and acting as a gatekeeper for the government.

The fact that Farrugia is a former Labour MP and PL deputy leader does not help when it comes to the image of impartiality.

The committee’s biggest problem, however, is that, effectively, MPs are acting as watchdogs over themselves.

Just like the police force has the independent Police Complaints Board to investigate claims of misdeeds by its members, the behaviour of MPs, or rather their misbehaviour, should be regulated by a body that is as independent as possible and which is not made up of their own peers.

Just like in the courts, justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done.

But this is not the case with the current setup of the committee.

To give an example, how can justice be seen to be done when MPs who held top posts in Joseph Muscat’s cabinet, and who are members of the standards committee, are tasked with assessing a report on some breach of ethics by the former prime minister?

How can they be considered impartial when they are handed a report on some breach of ethics by one of their own ministers or parliamentary secretaries, as happened recently?

How can the committee be impartial when there is at least one sitting minister serving as a member?

And this would also be true if the tables were turned, and the Nationalist Party were in government.

The OECD report highlights several loopholes in both the composition of the Parliamentary committee and the law that regulates it – the Standards in Public Life Act - and puts forward recommendations to address these issues.

Closing these loopholes once and for all is an important task because the law, while having been a very positive step, still falls short in several areas and, in some cases seems to have been tailor-made to ensure that MPs who go down the wrong path can get away with it or, at most, with just a slap on the wrist.

If we truly want to raise standards in politics, we cannot have politicians watching over politicians, and we cannot have a law that lets MPs decide whether a report by the standards commissioner is published or not.

There needs to be more effective enforcement of the code of ethics, and sanctions imposed must reflect the gravity of the offence.

We hope that the government – which shunned the presentation of the reports – will take some interest in the matter and ensure that all these recommendations are implemented in a timely manner.