House committee to discuss standing orders

The House Business Committee will be meeting in the coming days to discuss amendments to parliamentary standing orders as well as the procedure for journalists to film and use recordings of sittings.

Opposition whip Joe Mizzi said at a meeting of the committee yesterday that the situation regarding access to journalists was getting difficult.

He said that he had never objected to anyone filming but one should not use two weights and two measures. A certain practice used to be followed but the situation had changed out of the blue. (He was referring to a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee where a Super One cameraman was not allowed to film part of a meeting since that the meeting was a continuation of a previous one which Super One had already filmed.)

Leader of the House Tonio Borg said he also wanted to see a clear procedure. However, the committee also needed to discuss the updating of Standing Orders including the report on the subject by President Emeritus Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and proposals on how the work of the House could be better organised to make it more family friendly.

Mr Mizzi said Super One had submitted another request to film the proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee.

Dr Borg said the government was against granting permission, for the reasons given before.

(Following the meeting, however, he told Mr Mizzi that the government had no objection to the filming.)

Both sides agreed to discuss the issue at forthcoming meetings of the committee.

The Speaker, Anton Tabone told the committee that he had received correspondence from European Commission President Jose' Manoel Barroso informing him how all legislative documents in Brussels had to go through national parliaments.

This, Mr Tabone said, was a positive development, but the House had to see how to prepare itself for this situation. Contact had already been made with other national parliaments to discuss the set-up for this new situation.

He said the EuroMed Parliamentary Assembly had also written to the Maltese Parliament asking it what funding it could allocate for the setting up of the secretariat of the assembly in Malta.

It was agreed that the issue will be discussed with Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech.

Dr Borg said the adjournment of the House for the Christmas recess was being pencilled in for December 12. He said it was hoped that the debate on the drinking age would be concluded today. The budget will be debated next week and part of the following. Other debates before the recess will include pension reform, the Voluntary Organisations Bill, constitutional amendments on Gozo and the Ombudsman, a report on small businesses, the Budget Measures Implementation Bill and amendments to the Civil Code which, among other matters, will regulate foundations.

On November 22 government and opposition speakers will jointly take up the adjournment time to speak on domestic violence as part of a day of action instituted by the Council of Europe.