Ministerial ac­coun­tability vis-à-vis Parliament was, un-doubtedly, a very topical issue during this legislature. To what extent should a minister be held politically accountable for the commissions or omissions of his general staff was discussed time and again.

This having been a former colony, we naturally had adopted a style of governance not too far removed from the UK model. It must be conceded, however, that, recently, we have been somewhat departing from tradition, at times due to EU directives, though the intrinsic ingredients have remained.

On the other hand, as far as ministerial responsibility goes, we are now very distant because, here, this basic principle of parliamentary democracy is practised very rigidly. In Malta, over the years, the issue of political responsibility has been purposely or otherwise muddled up with the concept of legal responsibility when this should never be the case.

It is a well-known fact that, for legal responsibility to ensue, there has to be hard evidence. Of course, such solid, undisputed evidence would not be required from a political perspective.

It is on account of this ensuing confusion that the Parliamentary Committee for the Recodification of Laws decided to tackle the matter and clarify this concern once and for all. In a draft Bill, providing for the introduction of an Administrative Code, we took the opportunity to propose relative legislation to this effect. This can be found in Title II under the heading Of Ministerial Responsibility to Parliament, from articles 164 to 169.

After much thought and consultation, the Committee decided to define and list six levels of ministerial accountability. It would be interesting to briefly discuss them. These are:

• Redirecting the question to the relevant minister. This refers to the case when the matter would fall outside the minister’s responsibility and is redirected to a ministerial colleague. This is obviously the lowest form of responsibility.

• Providing all relative information. We are stating that this line of action is appropriate when the only requirement is for the minister to provide some factual information within an area for which s/he has responsibility.

• Providing full explanations. In order to avoid being held responsible, a minister would provide an explanation of the events or actions taken in instances when no corrective or remedial action is required.

• Taking remedial action. This concerns instances where some action was or is required in response to events that have occurred.

• Accepting personal culpability. Here, as stated earlier, we are introducing the principle that ministers are expected to accept personal culpability for their own acts and omissions and for those of their heads of department and their personal staff in issues in which they would have participated or, more importantly, of which they were aware or should have been aware of.

• Resignation. This is appropriate were a minister has lost the confidence of the House of Representatives. In fact, culpability under the previous paragraph could at times lead to this.

To ensure good governance, to my mind it has become imperative to legislate accordingly in order to affirm this basic notion of a parliamentary democracy.

Experience has shown how members of the Executive have always managed to exculpate themselves from responsibility by blaming subordinates or claiming ignorance. This, as stated earlier, is certainly not the system we had originally inherited from the British and is definitely the wrong approach.

Hopefully, the initiative taken will set the ball rolling and provide food for thought for the next legislature.

Josè Herrera MP is the Labour Party’s spokesman on justice.

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