A fourth of the motions of no confidence filed against rulings given by the Speaker in the past 30 years had been tabled by the Opposition in the past four years.

This was stated by Justice Minister Owen Bonnici today shortly after the Opposition filed a motion challenging a Speaker’s ruling in the minister's favour.

“This is symptomatic of this Opposition – when an institution proves them right they support it, and when it doesn’t they attack it,” Dr Bonnici said.

On Monday, Speaker Anġlu Farrugia asked Dr Azzopardi to retract his statement so that he could consider the case closed. He warned that unless the statement was retracted, he would take "further steps".

Opposition leader Simon Busuttil asked the Speaker to also apply the ruling to him as he also believed that Dr Bonnici had lied to Parliament.

When filing the motion this morning, Opposition deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami had described the ruling as “an attack on freedom of speech”.

Reacting to this, Dr Bonnici said the Opposition’s lack of faith in island’s the highest institution was alarming.

He said 16 motions of no confidence had been filed against the Speaker since 1987, and four of them had come from the PN in this legislature.

“I have been accused of perjury by Dr Azzopardi, I couldn’t just let that slide. I didn’t think twice – I knew I had to appeal to the Speaker,” Dr Bonnici said.

Asked why he had not filed court proceedings against Dr Azzopardi, the Justice Minister said the matter was “intimately connected to Parliament” and so he had opened “a form of libel proceedings” through the House.