New rules on lobbying, gifts, the misuse of public resources and insider information are being considered by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, Times of Malta was told.
In a report published earlier this week, the Group of States Against Corruption (Greco), recommended that contact between top government officials and lobbyists be disclosed along with the subject matters of such meetings.
Standards Commissioner George Hyzler told Times of Malta his office had already started looking into these aspects and the imminent recruitment of a senior researcher and a legal consultant would help drive this forward.
He said the law governing standards in public life empowered him to make recommendations for improving the code of ethics for ministers, MPs and persons of trust within ministerial secretariats.
Dr Hyzler, who was appointed last October, said his office would also be exploring rules to crack down on officials who transitioned to private firms they would have regulated while in office.
In its report, Greco highlights what it describes as “fears” that the Standards Commissioner’s nascent office will remain a “weak body”.
Immediately after being sworn in, Dr Hyzler indicated he would not be able to investigate the 17 Black case due to restrictions in the law as it predated the setting up of his office.
He pointed out that Greco made the “weak body” statement after mentioning the number of staff in his office and the fact that the Standards Commissioner had no jurisdiction over events that occurred before the Standards in Public Life Act came into force.
He said there was not much he could do about the restrictions in the law when it came to investigating past cases but, nonetheless, the legislation was an important step forward for governance in Malta. The law, he pointed out, was a means to promote higher standards of conduct in public life.
On staffing levels, Dr Hyzler said he was not facing any restrictions, although numbers alone were not a measure of his office’s effectiveness. “What really matters is whether cases of ethical misconduct are considered fairly, swiftly and without fear or favour,” he remarked.
Another concern flagged by Greco was the lack of powers available to the Standards Commissioner to sanction transgressions. Greco evaluators, who visited Malta last year, said they would have expected to see more effective and dissuasive sanctions available in the Commissioner’s arsenal.
Ultimately, Greco said the only sanction foreseen was for the person investigated to be admonished, unless the matter escalated to a criminal investigation because it was forwarded to the police or to the Permanent Commission Against Corruption.
One of its recommendations is that the Standards Commissioner is given the ap-propriate means to conduct inquiries and to propose effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions. Also, his jurisdiction should be extended to ongoing situations even when these resulted from actions that predated the enactment of the law setting up the Standards Commissioner’s office.
Dr Hyzler noted that he could refer breaches of the law to Parliament’s Standing Committee for Standards in Public Life, which was equally represented by government and Opposition MPs.
If the committee agreed with his report, it could admonish the person investigated and also demand the repayment of any public funds that could have been misused.
The committee could also recommend the dismissal of a person of trust, although it would be up to the government to decide whether or not to follow such recommendation, Dr Hyzler said.
He conceded that while admonitions or orders to apologise could be viewed as only being symbolic sanctions, viewed within the local political scene, where it was very rare for people in public life to apologise or admit they were wrong, such sanctions could be quite effective.
“An admonition or an order to apologise for misconduct will send a powerful message that not anything goes and that such misconduct is no longer acceptable, in which case the person could pay a political price.
“I do agree that the Standards in Public Life Act could be strengthened but I also believe that even in its current state it should be a force for the raising of standards in our country,” Dr Hyzler said.