The Standards Commissioner’s decision not to investigate a complaint filed against Speaker Anglu Farrugia sets a dangerous precedent for the future of Malta’s parliament.

The matter started when independent Arnold Cassola asked the Standards Commissioner to open an investigation against Speaker Anglu Farrugia for voting against a Standards report that found 18 ministers had misused funds on political adverts.

In an email sent to the Office of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, Cassola reminded the office that Farrugia is the “Principal Office Holder” of parliament, and his duty is to look after the interests of the Maltese citizens in parliament.

“With his vote in the parliamentary committee on standards, the Speaker failed in his duty to look after the interests of the people and instead chose to look after the interests of 18 Members of Parliament who broke the rules on advertising.”

But, in a ruling given by the Commissioner former Judge Joseph Azzopardi, made public by Cassola, he said that the complaint “had no legal basis to be investigated.” Azzopardi endorsed the decision taken by former Commissioner, George Hyzler, in his report on the 18 ministers but said he would not investigate the complaint against the Speaker.

This because, as a general rule, the Commissioner believes that he should discuss neither the functions nor the discretion of the Speaker, as President of the Parliamentary Committee on Standards in Public Life, since this would bring about a conflict of roles between Speaker and Commissioner.

The decision in effect places any Speaker above the jurisdiction of the Standards Commissioner – who is there specifically to enforce the ethical standards of behaviour expected of anyone in Parliament or anyone who is a person of trust.

The Speaker is appointed solely by government majority and one can argue that now that the Standards Commissioner has set a precedent that he cannot investigate a complaint against the Speaker there is no outside force stopping the Speaker’s role from being used and abused of by the government of the day.

For clarity: this is being presented as a hypothetical scenario – even though it can be argued that Anglu Farrugia has time and time again, such as in the episode cited in Cassola’s complaint, served as a gatekeeper for the government.

If this overlap of having the Speaker chairing the Standards in Public Life Committee – which is the committee which decides whether to adopt the Standards Commissioner’s reports of ethics breaches or not – is indeed something which stops the Standards Commissioner from investigating the Speaker, then the PN’s proposal to have somebody who is not a politician chairing the committee holds even more water.

This is due to the fact that one should have the opportunity to seek redress on any decision made by a public figure.

The Speaker is a public figure, but as things stand there appears to be no means for one to seek redress if a person believes that he or she has breached ethics in the way they have acted.