No further progress on revision of electoral expenditure regulations

No progress has been made on the pledge to revise the regulations governing electoral expenditure, The Sunday Times has learnt.

Speaker Louis Galea confirmed the issue has been added to the terms of reference of the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Change but he said no progress had yet been made on the issue.

He said the committee was meeting regularly but had a range of issues to deal with, which are being examined one by one. The committee is now at an advanced stage in discussions on the Ombudsman and when completed it would decide "which other issue it wants to tackle", Dr Galea said.

Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and Labour leader Joseph Muscat had written a joint letter to the Speaker on July 18 urging the Select Committee to discuss and revise regulations on electoral expenditure.

The leaders of the two main political parties had said amendments should ensure candidates were able to get their electoral message across in a way that was effective and realistic. They added that the rules must be clear, transparent and not allow grounds for ambiguity or interpretation.

The move came after several articles appeared in The Sunday Times seeking to establish whether candidates in the June European Parliament election had stuck to the expenditure limit of €18,635.

When The Sunday Times conducted an analysis of campaign expenditure, it had revealed that at least eight candidates appeared to have exceeded the limit.

Unelected Nationalist Party candidates Edward Demicoli and Frank Portelli, as well as Labour Party candidate Sharon Ellul Bonnici, had admitted to exceeding the limit by tens of thousands of euros.

The elected candidates from the two main parties - John Attard Montalto, Louis Grech, Edward Scicluna, Simon Busuttil and David Casa - had declared their expenses to be within the legal limit.

But they presented no receipts and had not taken the oath provided in the electoral form to accompany the declaration of expenses.

The declared campaign expenses of MEPs had come under fire from candidates of both major parties and calls for investigations to be made on declared expenses were not taken up.

Two judicial protests were filed by EP candidates Norman Lowell and Emmy Bezzina, who said they would institute a court case demanding an investigation if the Attorney General persisted in refusing to do his duty.

AG Silvio Camilleri had said last July his "office will take such action as may fall within its competence as circumstances and the law dictates".

However, to date, no action has been taken.

cmuscat@timesofmalta.com