Speaker Anglu Farrugia ruled against a breach of privilege complaint filed by PL MPs Jonathan Attard and Andy Ellul against the PN for issuing a statement last week in which it accused Minister Clint Camilleri and former Minister Clayton Bartolo of committing “fraud,” saying that this was not a case of “prima facie breach of privilege.”
Farrugia delivered his ruling in Parliament on Tuesday, where he took note of the complaint which referred to a PN press release issued last week, after Parliament’s Standards Committee unanimously adopted the conclusions of a Standards Commissioner report which found ministers Clayton Bartolo and Clint Camilleri in breach of ethics when Bartolo’s wife Amanda Muscat was paid for consultancy work she did not do.
Ellul and Attard accused the PN of making false declarations which did not reflect the facts of what was said and decided in the Committee sitting, even in saying that “government was caught in a web of lies and inconsistencies.”
They called for the Speaker to consider a breach of privilege on the matter. Farrugia quoted the PN press release, which also said that the Committee found the two Ministers “guilty of fraud of public funds.”
Farrugia clarified that the Committee had unanimously endorsed the report which found that the two Ministers had breached ethics.
He also quoted a NET News report which he ruled reported effectively that the Committee had adopted the report, contrary to what it was being accused of.
Farrugia quoted Opposition Leader Bernard Grech when he commented to media and said that the vote of the Committee’s members was important as it showed that Prime Minister Robert Abela does not have control over his Ministers, because he is “weak.”
Farrugia quoted the UK’s rulings on parliament proceedings being protected from defamation, and noted Ellul and Attard’s request, but said that what Grech said was a “political comment” connected with the PN’s press release.
He ruled that while the Committee never mentioned “fraud” or “theft,” what Grech said amounted to “political bickering,” and not “prima facie breach of privilege.”
