Speaker of the House of Representatives Michael Frendo yesterday ruled that a written parliamentary reply by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech to a question put by Labour MP Evarist Bartolo constituted a prima facie breach of privilege and referred the issue to the House Privileges Committee.
The opposition had not only raised the breach of privilege complaint but also called on the Speaker to name the Minister for implying bad motives to the MP.
“Naming” is a procedure where the Speaker or one of his deputies proposes a vote on the suspension of a member of the House whom he believes has broken the rules of conduct of the House.
Mr Frendo said that the breach of privilege and naming entailed two distinct and different procedures. He said that he had taken notice of the minister’s parliamentary reply and acted accordingly.
The ruling was given after the sitting had been suspended for 75 minutes.
The issue had been raised by Labour MP Evarist Bartolo who drew the Speaker’s attention to what he called an “unacceptable reply” by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech to a parliamentary question on the Bank of Valletta and the La Valette Multi-Manager Property Fund. He said Mr Fenech had attributed to him bad motives in declaring that he had any malicious intent or interest or was even trying to hinder audits.
Mr Bartolo said he would not be intimidated either by the minister or by the BOV chairman Roderick Chalmers who had sent him a letter and against whom he could have raised a breach of privilege.
All he did was to speak in the interest of the many small investors of the fund, some of whom were illiterate pensioners when the fund was intended for professionals.
Minister Fenech said that he stood by the parliamentary reply he had given, in which he said that the question requested that he interfere in the investigations being carried out by the Malta Financial Services Authority. The law did not permit this and he called on Mr Bartolo to refrain from influencing procedures and not to permit anyone from using Parliament to influence investigations.
He also told Mr Bartolo not to continue making insinuations and throw “speculative and defamatory” doubts aimed only at hindering the MFSA’s investigations, which were drawing to a close.
Mr Fenech said Mr Bartolo acted irresponsibly in the way he put the question, adding that the matter was a sensitive one and therefore questions could be interpreted as trying to exert influence. He said there was another process Mr Bartolo could have used to gain information.
The Speaker said he had taken note of Mr Bartolo’s complaint.
Opposition Whip Joe Mizzi said the Chair knew that this went against members’ privileges, and called on the Speaker to go by the rules and name the minister.