Justice Minister Owen Bonnici should get a calendar for Christmas and maybe a dictionary too.
For over a year, the government to which he belongs has been promising to publish a new ministerial code of ethics, however,it appears to be nowhere in sight.
The process was meant to have started off with some urgency after the Prime Minister said the current code is due for an overhaul because it is too voluminous, over 20 years old and needed to reflect today’s realities. A commission was meant to be set up to review the code.
At the beginning of the year, the government said the new code was due to the published soon. Months later, the Justice Minister went a step further and said it was imminent but when last approached by this newspaper and asked actually how imminent is imminent, the Justice Minister opted for “opportune moment”. Clearly, the matter is not being handled with the urgency and seriousness it deserves.
Just a month after coming into office, the Labour government had its first run with the ministerial code of ethics when it emerged that then parliamentary secretary Franco Mercieca, an ophthalmic surgeon, was still seeing patients. The code explicitly states that a Cabinet member is not to continue with his private work but to devote his whole time to official duties.
Mr Mercieca eventually resigned from his post so he could continue to practise his medical profession – to the relief of a number of patients who value his specialisation – but his case was certainly not the only one.
Foreign Minister George Vella, a doctor, also admitted seeing patients on Saturday mornings, although he was not charging them. He said he did not need any special permission from the Prime Minister – as had been granted to Mr Mercieca – because he was doing his duty according to the ethics of the medical profession. Very noble but he ignored the other code that prohibits Cabinet members from continuing to practise, even on a voluntary basis.
There are problems elsewhere with the code of ethics.
The declaration of assets by ministers and members of Parliament is being handled flippantly. In the first year of this government, three ministers had to submit to the Speaker revised declarations because of omissions made. This year, the Finance Minister did not present a declaration of assets in Parliament according to MPs’ code of ethics because he was ‘unaware’ that he was required to do so.
Even worse, another 15 Labour MPs, including the Prime Minister, failed to submit their declarations by end April, a deadline established by the Speaker.
It is also evident that more stringent guidelines are required as to the amount of detail that such declarations should include.
Before the summer recess, there was some hope that more responsibility and public accountability would be instilled into our political class when Deputy Prime Minister Louis Grech, seconded by Nationalist MP Francis Zammit Dimech, moved the first reading of a Bill on standards in public life.
The proposed law is a very commendable sign of cooperation between the two sides of the House but that too appears to have been stalled, prompting the Opposition to accuse the government of dragging its feet.
Given Joseph Muscat’s rhetoric on accountability and transparency when still in Opposition, it is high time that his government starts doing something about it, starting with the now overdue ministerial code of ethics.