'Double pay' for ministers: Speaker says it is not his role to judge if laws are observed

The Speaker of the House said today that it was not up to the Chair to decidewhether any financial laws were broken or procedures not followed in the appropriation of ministerial salaries and MPs's honoraria.

The Spekaer said that was the role of the Auditor-General.

Michael Frendo was giving a ruling following a complaint raised last January by Labour MP Joe Mizzi.

Mr Mizzi said there had been “a strong smell of misappropriation of public funds, carried out collectively by the Nationalist Cabinet”.

Mr Mizzi said it had resulted that when the House had debated the Budget for 2011, the personal emoluments of holders of political office had been quoted as €42,000, without any mention of the honoraria of €36,000 paid out of parliamentary funds.

Mr Mizzi had described this situation as one of illegality, and requested a ruling because the increases were not covered by the parliamentary votes on the Budgets for 2011 and 2010. Neither did such payments have the recommendation of the President of the Republic, as required by the Constitution.

Mr Mizzi had also asked if there was a conflict of interest between parliamentary and executive roles when a Parliamentary Assistant, already receiving parliamentary honoraria, was paid for his work in the same ministry. Could a parliamentary assistant put questions in the House?

In his ruling Mr Speaker said the Chair’s role lay only in seeing that parliamentary procedures were observed. It was not part of his role to see whether financial laws were observed or how the Appropriation Bill was drawn up. This was a matter for the Auditor General, another officer of Parliament whom the law empowered to investigate such issues.

The payment of honoraria, however, was not made from parliamentary funds.

On whether there was a conflict between a parliamentary assistant’s parliamentary and executive roles, Mr Speaker said this was a new office in Malta’s Parliament and, in keeping with the House standing orders, he had delved into the practice of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom.

Although no rule in the House of Commons precluded a Parliamentary Private Secretary – basically the equivalent of a Maltese Parliamentary Assistant – from putting parliamentary questions to their own minister, they were expected to follow the Ministerial Code which held that a parliamentary private secretary should not make statements or questions on matters affecting the department with which he or she was connected.

In Canada, Parliamentary Secretaries had no right to ask questions to the government because they were, in fact, responsible to answer for the government.

Mr Speaker said that in Malta’s House of Representatives, standing order 26 showed that questions could be put to any minister on public matters or any other MP with a responsibility for particular parliamentary work. He felt this standing order did not apply to parliamentary assistants because they had no responsibility for parliamentary work but were responsible in their specific ministries for liaison between the ministry and the House.

This was why a parliamentary assistant’s remuneration for such work was paid out of ministry funds.

Contrary to the situation in Canada, parliamentary assistants in Malta could not answer for the government. The standing orders in Malta contained nothing that clearly said that a minister or parliamentary secretary could not ask parliamentary questions.It was constant practice that a member of the executive, minister or parliamentary secretary could not ask active or supplementary questions.

The Constitution, however, referred only to the President of Malta, the Prime Minister, ministers and parliamentary secretaries as members of the executive after they had taken their oath of office. A parliamentary assistant was not included in the list.