Foreign Minister Tonio Borg’s White Paper and its petition to appoint a “parliamentary commissioner for standards with power to investigate cases of misbehaviour, unethical behaviour and abuse of parliamentary privilege by MPs” is a clear and present threat to the country’s already eroded democracy.
Most politicians are renowned for their ambiguous language- Allan Gatt, Birkirkara
Such a sterling-sounding body appears at first glance to be reassuring but the party proposing it and the political acrimony giving rise to it should raise serious concern as to its real design.
Most politicians are renowned for their evasive and intentionally ambiguous language and it is doubtful whether the “misbehaviour”, “unethical behaviour” and “abuse of parliamentary privilege” this White Paper is meant to prevent are what we think they are.
Words are slippery devils because they can mean different things to different people and this law might yet prove to be another morally bankrupt stratagem to deter a copycat break in the ranks and MPs from speaking out against their own parties.
Dr Borg is quoted saying that “a code of ethics has long been adopted but now it is time to have an enforcement mechanism,” which, again, sounds fairly peachy and unobjectionable until you realise that the first casualty of this illusory and ill-defined ‘ethical conduct’ might well be the truth.
Surprise, surprise, but speaking out against injustice is often quite ‘unethical’ to the person being accused of it.
What is ethical for the wolf is abhorrent for the sheep and even criminal syndicates like the Japanese Yakuza run their affairs by a strict code of ethics.
It is all a matter of perspective.
Even more dangerously, wouldn’t this parliamentary arbiter on ethics and misbehaviour be a law unto himself, cleave to the party which sprang him his sinecure and undermine the very purpose of free and fair elections? Why even bother casting your vote if you know your elected representative might be muzzled and criminally charged the minute he speaks up against his own rabble?
A more hubristic and double-crossing White Paper I have yet to lay eyes on.
Tyranny is tyranny, wherever it comes from.