The Bill to introduce an anti-deadlock mechanism for the appointment of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has been enacted into law after a final vote in Parliament on Monday evening.
The vote on the third and final reading of the bill was carried out at the end of Monday’s sitting.
The bill passed with 41 votes in favour and 35 against.
The first reading of the bill was presented in parliament on 19 December by Prime Minister Robert Abela. The bill was published in the Government Gazette on 27 December.
The Bill is amending the Standards in Public Life Act, meaning that the change would only affect appointments for this post and no other instances where a two-thirds majority is required.
The post of standards commissioner was set up in 2018 with the role of investigating claims of ethical breaches by MPs and persons of trust.
Currently, for the standards commissioner to be appointed there needs to be a two-thirds majority vote in parliament.
But the two sides of the House have not come to terms on the new appointee after George Hyzler was appointed as Malta's representative on the European Court of Auditors, leaving the Standards Commissioner seat vacant.
The government had proposed former Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi, but the Opposition was not in agreement.
The new proposed mechanism lays down that the Standards Commissioner should be nominated with the support of both sides of the house, but in the event that the required two-thirds majority is not reached, then the appointment is made via a simple majority.
Abela justified the mechanism by saying that it was what the Venice Commission had proposed and that former PN leader Simon Busuttil himself had proposed it in a governance paper back in 2015.