Wednesday, 3rd December 2008

Privilege complaint to be heard today

A breach of privilege complaint, raised by former Opposition leader Alfred Sant against Communications Minister Austin Gatt, is to be heard by the Privileges Committee of the House of Representatives this evening.

Dr Sant had raised a privilege complaint last October when he denied claims made by Dr Gatt in Parliament that he had information about the MITTS hacking inquiry and had tried to spin the story to a newspaper so as to mislead investigations. The Standing Committee is constituted of the Leader of the House Tonio Borg, two members nominated by the Prime Minister (Beppe Fenech Adami and Francis Zammit Dimech) and two members nominated by the Leader of the Opposition (Angelo Farrugia and Owen Bonnici).

This is the first case the House Privileges Committee is to consider in this legislature.