As one of his first acts, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has ordered a review of the 19-year-old ministerial code of ethics. He considers updating necessary to ensure the code is “more relevant to today’s realities.” Ethics in public life are crucial to keeping the entire system of government clean and decent.
Given that, in the wake of the “oil-gate” scandal and others, the Prime Minister has made transparency, accountability and public integrity one of the fundamental themes of his Administration, it is not surprising he has moved quickly on this issue, starting at the top with the ministerial code of ethics.
A reading of the ministerial code, issued by then Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami in 1994, underlines the need for it to be updated and streamlined.
It consists of seven sections dealing broadly with the tasks of the Cabinet (including collective responsibility), ministerial responsibility and their responsibility towards Parliament and the constituencies, attitudes to the civil service and travel abroad. The code ends with a longish section on private interests and the avoidance of conflicts couched in very broad terms.
How might a future revision of the code of ethics improve it in the way the Prime Minister wishes? A ministerial code should set out clearly the principles underpinning the standards of conduct and behaviour to be expected of ministers and parliamentary secretaries.
Ministers are expected to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety including, importantly, ensuring that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests. They are also under the paramount duty to comply with the law, including international law, to uphold the administration of justice, and to protect the integrity of public life. A revision of the code should also therefore lay down the clear principles in public life to which ministers are expected to adhere.
These should include commitments to probity and integrity; selflessness, impartiality and the firm desire to render to everyone that which is a person’s due; objectivity, a respect for reason and an appreciation of the wider public good; accountability; transparency and openness; and honesty, equity and fairness.
It would be important for any revision of the code to tie these ethical principles to the three pillars which are crucial to the stability of our entire system of government: an unwavering commitment to the rule of law; a constant concern for Parliament’s needs and procedures; and an unshakable obligation to uphold democratic values.
It may be thought these are self-evident truths. They are. But the code should still spell them out so ministers know precisely what they are signing up to.
However, the Prime Minister’s wish to re-draft the ministerial code of ethics will only amount to so much window-dressing unless it is backed up by the legislative means to hold ministers to account for their conduct.
His promise to introduce a Whistleblower Act, to remove the time-bar on crimes of corruption, to establish a Parliamentary Commissioner on Standards in Parliament and to introduce legislation on party funding will help.
Greater access to the Freedom of Information Act will encourage open government and enable the media to do their job of holding the government to account more effectively. All these pledges should now be implemented.
Ultimately, however, unless he personally demonstrates that those ministers who err from the standards laid down will be removed from office, he will fail to achieve the changes to Malta’s politics he desires.