An opportunity was lost when the Labour parliamentary group decided to uphold a ruling by the Speaker of the House of Representatives through which Parliament was not allowed to debate a motion of direct censure of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff.
As I had the opportunity to point out in the House, there was no legal justification for the ruling given by the Speaker. Even if one goes through the ruling with a fine toothcomb, the justification is simply not there. Certainly not when he admits that the Standing Orders are silent on this issue. Certainly not when he failed to quote any provision from our Constitution, which disallows Parliament from debating such a motion. Certainly not when he failed to quote from any other law that provides for such a prohibition.
And equally certainly when he quoted extensively from Erskine May (24th edition) with regard to the “manner of dealing with irregular notices of motion”, where it is observed that the Speaker may [he is not even obliged] allow the Clerk of the House to ask for a “motion which contains unbecoming expressions… or is otherwise irregular” to be corrected.
The motion as presented by independent MP Marlene Farrugia was not irregular and, considering that she was asked to change her motion of censure from one of Keith Schembri to one of censure of the Prime Minister, I am tempted to conclude on the very basis of the quotation given to us from Erskine May that “Keith Schembri” is an “unbecoming expression”.
On the basis of the quotation given to us from Erskine May, ‘Keith Schembri’ may be an ‘unbecoming expression’
It is simply bizarre that four years after Parliament was given full liberty to scrutinise the workings of our permanent representative to the European Union and the said person testified before a committee of the House for no less than six hours, most of which time took the form of incessant grilling by Labour MPs then in Opposition, the least Labour MPs could have done this time round was to defend the right of Parliament to scrutinise directly the Prime Minister’s chief of staff. Incidentally, the excuse that ambassadors are mentioned in the Constitution but not chiefs of staff does not hold water. The Constitution specifically provides that ambassadors can only be dismissed by the President of Malta on the advice of the Prime Minister and Parliament does not come into the picture at all.
What was done with regard to an ambassador is even more, rather than less, applicable to a Prime Minister’s chief of staff – for the simple reason that we are talking of a position of utmost political trust, and Parliament should not be denied the right to scrutinise his behaviour.
Ironically, a Bill meant to provide for standards in public life – which has been gathering dust for over two years despite being drafted in line with the unanimous consent of MPs from both sides of the House who formed part of an ad hoc committee chaired by the Speaker – provides that this law will apply to MPs as well as to “employees in a position of trust and to persons engaged as advisers or consultants to government or to any statutory body”.
The opportunity that so far has been lost is that there are many questions the Prime Minister’s chief of staff should be made to answer in front of a parliamentary committee. A sample of the questions that would be asked include the following:
Why did he set up a secret company in Panama after becoming the Prime Minister’s chief of staff? What was the intended business? Management services, brokerage, handling waste in India, remote gaming? Why repeatedly seek to open a bank account for the same secret company?
What about allegations about transferring money to third parties? What about the latest reports indicating that the secret company planned to receive €50,000 in revenue per month and then withdraw half of that amount?
Parliament is made up of representatives of the people. It is on their behalf that we have sought the right to ask such questions to the person who is in duty bound to answer them.
Francis Zammit Dimech is a Nationalist MP.