Speaker of the House can never be investigated by Standards Commissioner

A legal lacuna has cropped up that means the Speaker of the House of Representatives can never be investigated by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life because the Speaker chairs Parliament’s Standing Committee for Standards in Public Life.

The issue was flagged by Standards Commissioner Joe Azzopardi in reply to a request for an investigation into Speaker Anglu Farrugia from independent politician Arnold Cassola over Farrugia’s refusal to adopt a standards commissioner report that found 18 ministers had misused public funds by spending them on purely partisan political advertisements.

In June 2022, former Standards Commissioner George Hyzler published a report after an investigation into a supplement in Labour’s newspaper Kullhadd the previous January celebrating Prime Minister Robert Abela’s two years of party leadership.

In his report, the Commissioner found that 18 ministers forked out for the supplement and all breached four articles of the Ministerial Code of Ethics by spending €16,700 of public funds for a wholly partisan purpose.

Hyzler had recommended that the ministers reimburse the funds spent.

Farrugia, however, last week voted against the report in the Committee he chairs.

“With his vote in the parliamentary committee on standards, the Speaker failed in his duty to look after the interests of the people and instead chose to look after the interests of 18 Members of Parliament who broke the rules on advertising,” Cassola said at the time.

“With this act, the speaker not only covered up the shame of a parliamentarian who did not behave ethically, but undermined, discredited and ridiculed the valuable and honest work of the Commissioner for Standards.”

While Azzopardi, in his reply to Cassola’s request to investigate Farrugia over his vote, strongly defended the report, drawn up by his predecessor George Hyzler, he said he was unable to proceed against the Speaker because of his Committee chairmanship.

“This,” Cassola said this morning after receiving his reply, “is because, as a general rule, the Commissioner believes that he should discuss neither the functions nor the discretion of the Speaker, as President of the Parliamentary Committee on standards in public life, since this would bring about a conflict of roles between Speaker and Commissioner.

“Basically, despite being a parliamentarian, the Speaker will never be subject to the rules drawn up for parliamentarians, and is free to contradict any decision taken by the Commissioner for Standards.”