Speaker Anġlu Farrugia has issued a ruling in which he called for a mechanism to be introduced to ensure that all parliamentary questions are answered in a timely manner.

Parliamentary questions (PQs) are formal tools through which Members of Parliament can scrutinise those in government to hold them accountable in their operational and financial actions. Ministers are obliged to answer all PQs in accordance with the rules of the House. PQs can either be asked in writing or orally.

Speaker Farrugia issued this ruling during Parliament on Wednesday, 18 March 2026 at the request of PN MP Eve Borg Bonello.

Borg Bonello told the Speaker that between 9 February 2026 and 17 March 2026, she asked the Prime Minister and 11 other Ministers about their total expenditure spent on advertising and promotion, both by their respective Ministry (or the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) for the Prime Minister) and by all departments and authorities falling under their remit, from 2022 till the day she posed the question. Borg Bonello requested that this information be provided through a year-by-year breakdown, where the kind of promotion is also stated (e.g., billboard, sponsored posts, influencer, online media, etc.), and to include the date of publication, promotion, campaign, etc., plus the total amount spent.

In total, Borg Bonello requested this information to the Prime Minister and 11 other Ministers through 86 distinct parliamentary questions (PQs) over the past 38 days. The Opposition MP said she is yet to receive a single response and has repeatedly been told that an answer will be provided in time, the Speaker said.

Aside from Prime Minister Abela, the PN MP asked this PQ to the Ministers Ian Borg, Owen Bonnici, Michael Falzon, Anton Refalo, Silvio Schembri, Julia Farrugia Portelli, Clint Camilleri, Byron Camilleri, Miriam Dalli, Clyde Caruana, and Clifton Grima.

The Speaker of the House stated that there exists no Standing Order in place, within the Parliament of Malta, on what must happen should a Minister fail to respond to any given PQ, or answer "with silence."

The Speaker said that his powers only relate to the asking of PQs and that he has no say on ministerial responses to them.

Farrugia cited a past ruling that he had given in October 2023, where he ruled that "there is a parliamentary procedure used in the case of interim responses where the Minister may give a partial response, with the remaining information being provided at a subsequent sitting when it is collected."

Regarding Borg Bonello's PQs, Speaker Farrugia noted that since she requested information dating back to 2022, "certainly, answering this question requires a lot of research year by year, month by month."

He continued that this may raise issues on the advisory cost limit that exists to cap the expenditure a single PQ may require for a response, though Borg Bonello's questions so far raise no concern related to exceeding the advisory cost cap.

For such cases, the Speaker cited another past ruling, this time from July 2024, where he declared that "although the relative Minister stated that in order to answer these questions the advisory cost limit is being exceeded, it urges all Ministers so that if a question can be answered even partially, this is done so that as much as possible the parliamentary questions mechanism achieves the purpose for which it is intended."

In Wednesday's ruling, Speaker Farrugia said that Borg Bonello was within her rights as an MP to ask this question, to the concerned Ministers, a total of 86 times between 9 February 2026 and 17 March 2026, in her effort to receive a response.

Hence, the Speaker commented that in this case, the question is what a reasonable period of time for a PQ is to be answered.

He observed that there exists no Standing Order within the Parliament of Malta or the British House of Commons on what constitutes a "reasonable period of time" for a PQ to be answered. Many of the Maltese Parliament's structures are inspired by the House of Commons.

While researching for this particular ruling, Speaker Farrugia looked towards parliamentary procedures within other Commonwealth countries and found that a few years ago, the Canadian Parliament introduced a procedure where those in government have 45 days to respond to a PQ before a subsequent procedure is enacted.

On the issue of what is a reasonable answering period for PQs that "must be answered," Speaker Farrugia concluded that: "Therefore, as I have done several times, I again appeal to both sides of the House to discuss this matter seriously, and like the Canadian Parliament, address the situation where parliamentary questions are not being answered to the satisfaction of the Member who asked them."

The Speaker noted that this conclusion was given in a previous ruling of his, on 7 October 2024, and that he reiterates this in this particular ruling.

Speaker Farrugia reminded all Ministers who were asked Borg Bonello's PQ "about the importance of it being answered within a reasonable time" and simultaneously encouraged MPs to "continue to use all the remedies given to them by the House to insist on the information they are requesting," as MP Borg Bonello did.

He ended his ruling by calling for the Parliament of Malta to have a mechanism in place to ensure that all PQs asked within the House are answered, in the spirit of what PQs are meant to achieve as per the Parliament's own Standing Orders.