Standards Commissioner Judge Joseph Azzopardi has ruled that there is no basis for an investigation into the Labour Party’s Public Accounts Committee MPs over their decision to block Film Commissioner Johann Grech from testifying on his entity’s spending.
The government’s MPs at the end of October blocked a request to re-summon Grech to give the committee a full account of €7.2 million in over-spending when compared to its Budget estimate.
The party Momentum had filed a complaint with the Standards Commissioner over the decision of Labour MPs Alex Muscat, Amanda Spiteri Grech, Ramona Attard, and Naomi Cachia (who replaced Glenn Bedingfield during the meeting) to vote against Grech being summoned.
At the time, Muscat had said that they felt that subject had been “exhausted” and saw no need to revisit it.
In a decision published by Momentum’s Arnold Cassola on Wednesday afternoon, it emerged that the Standards Commissioner has decided that there is no basis for there to be an investigation against the four government MPs.
In his decision, the Standards Commissioner cited a ruling by his predecessor which determined that the jurisdiction of Parliament is within the remit of the Speaker of the House, and not the Standards Commissioner.
This applies for parliamentary committees as well, and the Standards Commissioner cited a ruling by his predecessor George Hyzler on alleged poor behaviour during a PAC meeting as reference.
In that ruling, Hyzler had said that it is the PAC chairperson who should act in accordance with his role, and that unless there are exceptional circumstances of a breach of ethics of statutory duties there was no need for the Standards Commissioner to intervene.
Judge Azzopardi also said however that the request filed by Momentum alleged that the MPs had breached ethics because of the position they had taken in their vote within the parliamentary committee.
“The undersigned believes that every MP has the right and duty to vote in Parliament or a parliamentary committee how they wish, and that an MP should not be found to have breached ethics simply because of how they voted,” Azzopardi wrote in his decision.
On these cumulative grounds, Azzopardi ruled that there is no basis for Momentum’s complaint to be investigated.
The decision was not published by the Standards Commissioner’s office, as is the practice for such decisions, but by Momentum chairperson Arnold Cassola.
In a statement, Cassola, commented: "Yesterday we got to know that MPs are free to lie. Today, we get to know that MPs are free to vote as they deem, even if they are obstructing the quest for justice and truth. We wonder if there is any other such parliament in democratic Europe where MPPs are allowed to behave this way."