Speaker won’t let MP ask question about Muscat’s meetings with Pilatus bank chairman

The Speaker of the House will not accept parliamentary questions by Jason Azzopardi on details pertaining to the wedding of Pilatus Bank chairman Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, which was attended by the Prime Minitser.

Sadr Hasheminejad was arrested in the United States where he has pleaded not guilty to charges of breaching US sanctions against Iran. His bank was licenced to operate in Malta in 2014, two years after the alleged breaches took place. It was later revealed that Joseph Muscat and chief of staff Keith Schembri attended the Pilatus chairman’s wedding in Venice.

In his PQ, Azzopardi had asked the prime minister whether Scehmbri attended the wedding in 2015, and how many times the prime minister had met Hasheminejad before June 2015 and what were the circumstances.

But the Speaker told the MP that the questions went against the Standing Orders, namely 26(1) which limits PQs to the “public affairs” of ministers and MP “relating to any business of the House for which such minister or member is responsible”; and 27(6) which states that PQs “shall not be asked as to the character or conduct of any person except in his official or public capacity.”

Similar questions to Muscat over Keith Schembri have been blocked by Speaker Anglu Farrugia.

Nationalist MP Simon Busuttil has appealed a decision to rule against him about the permission to ask PQs about Schembri. Farrugia used established procedure in the House of Commons in the UK and insisted that allowing Busuttil to continue on certain PQs would go against his duty to ensure that order is kept in the House, because PQs directed at ministers should specifically relate to their responsibilities, and not be based on media reports.

Farrugia claimed the PQs were not in the public interest.

Busuttil had asked whether the Schembri has a bank account in Dubai and whether he has a bank account at Pilatus Bank – the latter something already established by a leaked FIAU report into a compliance visit at the bank in 2016.

Busuttil said the Speaker’s decision was “unprecedented”.

“The Speaker has confirmed that I cannot ask the PM if his Chief of Staff has a bank A/C in Dubai and Pilatus Bank. This decision is absurd and dangerous because it takes away my right as MP to keep the Govt under scrutiny. This is how democracies start to die,” he tweeted.