The time has come to address issues which arise when citizens felt aggrieved by statements made about them in Parliament, and to establish a mechanism which granted citizens a right of redress, Speaker Anglu Farrugia said this evening.
He said this needed to be done without impinging on Parliamentary rights and privileges, since these were intended to allow Members of Parliament to speak without fear.
Dr Farrugia said that within the framework of the ongoing exercise to review the Standing Orders, MPs had to ensure that regulations which bestow greater dignity to this Parliament, even in which each Member addresses the House, were introduced.
The Speaker was speaking during a ceremony commemorating the 1919 June 7 bread riots during which four Maltese lost their lives.
The event included a wreath laying ceremony at the foot of the Sette Giugno monument in Hastings Gardens. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Opposition leader Simon Busuttil were among those who laid wreaths.
Dr Farrugia said that on March 18, he received a request from the National Festivities Committee for the Chair’s opinion on the relocation of this monument.
“I wish to immediately declare myself in favour of this monument being relocated to the immediate vicinity of the Parliament building. Thus the intrinsic link between this monument’s significance, which we are commemorating today, and the Maltese Parliament will also be reflected physically and visually,” he said.
Dr Farrugia said that Parliament’s next objective in its bid to achieve more transparency was for Parliament to have its own free-to-air television station, so that all who wanted to exercise their right to follow parliamentary democracy in action would not be dependent on a television subscription.
The infrastructure existed, the free-to-air platform operated by GO was in place, a television channel was available, and therefore this channel should be assigned immediately to the country’s highest institution, he said as he appealed to the authorities to ensure immediate access to this facility.
Dr Farrugia said that the enhancement of transparency in Parliamentary work was the prevailing message of research he carried out into the June 7, 1919 events.
This research showed that an inquiry had accused the Maltese of firing the first shots against British soldiers. A new inquiry asserted that the incidents arose due to incitement by politicians.
The Nationalist party of the time also alleged that Judge Alfred Parnis, who was leading the, harboured ambitions for the Presidency of the Court of Appeal and one of the members of the commission, Magistrate Luigi Camilleri, was appointed judge one month following his nomination.
Dr Farrugia said that although, officially, there were these two versions of events, the Maltese people became more united and remained so up to the first few years following the riots.
Those who genuinely wanted progress for the Maltese, Dr Farrugia said, were the Labour and the Nationalist parties.
And although tragic, the Sette Giugno riots and the ensuing events led to the 1921 Self-Government Constitution, also known as the Amery-Milner Constitution.
The Maltese, he said, deserved democratic leadership where the truth was told and which was characterised by a transparent legislative mechanism.