Opposition presents motion

Disagreement on whether the planned debate in parliament on the controversy involving the ombudsman should be concluded by the prime minister or by the leader of opposition yesterday led the Labour Party to present a motion requesting a formal discussion in the House.

Acting on a request by Opposition Leader Alfred Sant, the House on Monday decided to debate the controversy this coming Monday.

The House Business Committee met on Wednesday and it was agreed that the debate be spread over five sittings starting on Monday evening.

It was further agreed that it would be an open debate with neither a motion being moved nor a vote taken and that the two leaders would either open or close the debate. Both sides had to determine which of the leaders would be doing what.

Social Policy Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday the opposition insisted Dr Sant should conclude the debate.

However, the government preferred the conclusion to be made by the prime minister. This was confirmed by the Labour parliamentary group in a statement which said the opposition felt it should conclude the debate once it had taken the initiative to raise the issue in parliament.

Dr Gonzi, who is also leader of the House, explained that once the House had already agreed that an open debate on the ombudsman would start on Monday and the issue was already on the agenda, the debate would have to start and then both sides would, presumably, discuss how best to proceed.

The Labour parliamentary group said Dr Gonzi had insisted the statutory period of three working days should run before the motion presented yesterday could be considered for debate. It quoted the Labour whip as pointing out that there had been instances when agreement had been reached for debates on motions to take place even before the statutory period expired.

Dr Gonzi said the government wanted the debate to take place in order to put the record straight and explain that thousands of complaints brought to the attention of the ombudsman had been concluded to the satisfaction of the complainant.

There were only "tens" of cases in which the ombudsman's recommendations could not be upheld and the government would have taken the opportunity presented to it by the debate in order to give the reasons, Dr Gonzi said.

The motion presented to the Clerk of the House yesterday by deputy leader George Vella and whip Joe Mizzi on behalf of the Labour parliamentary group more or less contains the points raised in parliament on Monday when Dr Sant requested the debate.

Dr Sant had criticised the "strong, unjustified and intimidatory accusations" made by the government against the ombudsman following the latter's complaints as to how his office was being treated by the administration.

He had said that in a modern democracy, such government action amounted to moral and political violence on a national institution set up to defend the people from the power of the state.

Dr Sant had, as does the motion, demanded debate so that the House would express solidarity with the ombudsman and parliament's other officers.