A draft Bill on political party regulation written by Nationalist MP Franco Debono has been welcomed by commentators, including former Finance Minister Lino Spiteri.

“This is a good piece of work and I agree with the details,” he said, adding that political parties should not be financed by taxpayers but by their supporters.

“I also don’t think there should be large donations by business interests because large donations undermine democracy.”

Dr Debono’s draft says donations should be capped at €50,000 but any hand-outs above €7,000 should be reported and disclosed.

Mr Spiteri also agreed with the levels suggested as a capping on campaign spending by elec-tion candidates.

“Candidates should not buy votes but knock on doors, appear on the media and write on Facebook to persuade people with their arguments,” he said.

Mr Spiteri praised Dr Debono for the proposal to have political parties audited.

“Parties should be accountable, not just to their members but also to the public. That is what democracy is all about,” he added.

Constitutional lawyer Austin Bencini pointed out that the draft Bill went “far beyond” party financing. He said this was both something positive and a reason for it to be more open to scrutiny.

“This is an extremely important law because it’s the first time a comprehensive regulation of political parties is being proposed. The donations aspect is one of several important other points. But it has to be read in greater detail in its totality and with other laws such as the General Elections Act.”

Dr Bencini said one had to be very cautious about giving the courts or the state the power to disband political parties. Dr Debono’s draft Bill gives the Civil Court the right to disband a political party if it publicly and persistently advocates the use of violence as a political tool, advocates anti-democratic principles or makes use of its funds for a criminal activity. Lawyer Georg Sapiano, who was once a Nationalist Party election candidate and was vocal ­during the European Parliament election campaign spending debacle, said there were some questions that still were yet to be answered.

He said the costs of a campaign should start being counted once an election is called and should not include the money collected from entrance tickets to campaign events.

He added that MEP candidates effectively contested all districts, so they should be given a threshold of general election candidates multiplied by 13. General election candidates contesting two districts, he argued, should be allowed to spend double the threshold.

Dr Debono’s draft law, based on British and German legislation, gives general election candidates a €10,000 threshold but does not say whether this remains the same for candidates contesting more than one district.

He is proposing a threshold of €35,000 for MEP candidates.

Nationalist MP Karl Gouder said he thought €10,000 was a decent amount for a campaign and anyone wanting to spend more was simply exaggerating.

Dr Debono has appealed for people to focus on the structure of the law rather than the thresholds, which could be debated and adjusted even after the law was enacted.

The MEP candidate expenditure, he added, had to “strike a balance” to ensure financial means are not the determining factor to a candidate’s success.

The Labour Party refused to comment on the draft law, details of which were published by The Times yesterday, preferring to wait for “proper publication of a final draft”.

A party spokesman said that the guiding principles on party financing remained consistent with Labour’s position in the 1995 Galdes Commission. Back then, Labour had proposed that party donations above €11,600 should be disclosed and should be capped at €23,200.

Alternattiva Demokratika, which has been vocal about party funding, said its own proposals were “the best guarantee for transparency and a level playing field”.

The green party believes donations exceeding €5,000 should be declared and those over €40,000 should be illegal. It believes the state should give political parties €3 for every vote won in general and European Parliament elections.

“State financing of political parties has been tried and tested in established democracies within the European Union,” it said.