Parliamentary Assistants cannot ask questions about their ministries

The Speaker Michael Frendo yesterday ruled that a Parliamentary Assistant could not ask questions in the House regarding the ministry in which he or she was serving.

Dr Frendo was delivering a ruling on a request made by Opposition Whip Joe Mizzi last January regarding what the latter had called “a strong smell of misappropriation of public funds, carried out collectively by the Nationalist Cabinet”.

Mr Mizzi had said it had resulted that when the House had debated the Budget for 2011, and the opposition had moved the reduction of one euro from each minister’s emoluments as a sign of no confidence, 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. This meant that ministers and parliamentary secretaries had pocketed two payments each.

Mr Mizzi had described this situation as one of illegality, and requested a ruling thereon because the increases being given to them 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 the Speaker to clarify the decision why ministers’ and parliamentary secretaries’ honoraria should come out of ministry votes. He 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 Mr Mizzi’s questions were of a substantial nature and deserved attention, but the Chair’s role lay only in seeing that parliamentary procedures were carried out in order. It was not part of his role to see that no financial laws and standards in the country were broken. This was a matter to be seen by the Auditor General, another official of Parliament whom the law empowered to investigate such issues.

Honoraria had never been taken out of parliamentary votes.

On whether there was a conflict between a parliamentary assistant’s parliamentary and executive roles, when he or she was paid honoraria from Parliament as well as in his ministry role as parliamentary assistant, 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. Going collectively by standing orders 27, 28 and 29 it was constant practice that a member of the executive, minister or parliamentary secretary could not ask active or supplementary questions.

The Constitution 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.