During an interview with The Malta Independent on Sunday, the Standards Commissioner was asked about, and responded to a number of questions regarding the state of affairs when it comes laws and structures that are in place to oversee ethical standards of politicians.

One point he mentioned was that the time-barring period for ethics breach cases is too short.

Currently, a complaint under the Standards in Public Life Act shall not be entertained unless it is made not later than thirty working days from the day on which the complainant had knowledge of the fact giving rise to the complaint, or more than one year from when the fact giving rise to the complaint happened. The Commissioner believes this is too short a period. "Ideally, it should be at least two years," the Commissioner said.

This newsroom would argue that it should be even longer than that, in order to ensure that politicians can be properly held to account for their actions. But there is absolutely no doubt that the current period is too short. It needs to be modified.

It is understandable that there be some form of prescriptive period, after all, as the Commissioner mentions, it would be hard for someone to remember something that happened 15 years ago to defend themselves. But the current period within the law serves no other purpose than to provide extra defence for those in power.

The Commissioner is also in favour of the need for a transparency register, just as his predecessor was. Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi mentioned that it was also part of the final recommendations made in an OECD report. Such a register would detail meetings with lobbyists, and would be available to the public.

The register should have been introduced long ago, yet the government has dragged its feet on this issue. There have been so many concerns about government dealings with developers and others that the government's refusal to introduce such a requirement raises further questions.

In this newsroom's opinion, such a register should be kept for meetings with the Prime Minister, ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, Permanent Secretaries, the Leader of the Opposition, heads of public authorities and entities, among others.

During the interview, the Commissioner also said that he wants the ability to publish reports where a decision is taken not to investigate. They should be made public. It makes no sense that the Commissioner not be able to publish such a report, especially when the filing of investigation requests are normally reported upon. The Commissioner himself mentioned there was an unpublished report in which he says he could not investigate the case due to it being time-barred. Why shouldn't that report be made public?

Among the other points raised during the interview, the Commissioner spoke of his belief that the composition of the Standards Committee should change to include lay persons and local councillors, and that it should also enlarge.

It is currently too confrontational, he said, and he is right.

Having lay people in particular make up the majority of the committee could lead to more trust in the system and ensure that the sanctions issued against MPs are fair. But how these lay people are appointed would need to be done right, with agreement from both sides of Parliament.