Standards czar: DOI failed to correct Schembri’s partisan press statement

A press statement by the economy minister through the Department of Information which was deemed to be of a partisan nature, was a breach of ethics the Commissioner for Standards for Public Life has decreed.

George Hyzler reiterated the need to avoid partisan statements in official press releases, after a complaint was lodged by Prof. Kevin Cassar against Silvio Schembri, the minister for economy.

Hyzler said ministers are obliged to respect the political impartiality of the public service. “Ministers and members of the Opposition alike are at liberty to make partisan statements through personal or party channels, but doing so through the Department of Information constitutes an abuse,” the commissioner said, upholding the complaint.

Silvio Schembri acknowledged that his press statement “might have been considered overly partisan” and undertook to “make every effort to avoid such statements when these are issued through the DOI”.

The Commissioner considered this statement to be a sufficient remedy in the circumstances of the case, but said he would take a more serious view of similar future cases.

Hyzler has already treated the matter of ministers and the use of the Department of Information for press statements in a report issued in August 2019, in which he recommended that the DOI develop a policy determining what constitutes acceptable content in statements to be published by it.

The November 2020 complaint requested Hyzler to investigate a press release on 8 October 2020 relating to the decision by the Malta Business Registry to remove 10,000 companies from its register. The complainant expressed the view that “the language used in the press release as well as its content was clearly partisan, and the statement certainly did not respect the political impartiality of the public service”.

The complainant quoted from the press release: “It is clear that the intention of the PN statement is to cause harm. It’s authors are very much aware that they are being deliberately deceitful ….” … “The deplorable attack is yet another example of how the Opposition strives to harm the country continuously”. … “While it is a fact that the current leader of the Opposition is ashamed to say that he is Maltese, such a stance does not give him the prerogative to harm the country”.

Hyzler concluded that the statement failed to respect the separation between the role of minister and party member, and that it breached the principle of political impartiality of the public service.

“The statements in question should not have been published by the Department of Information in the first place. The failure of the department to request a revision of the section containing partisan and political statements, does not relieve the Minister from his obligation to ensure that only statements with comprehensive and meaningful information on government policies, services and activities as well as on matters of public interest are referred for publication by the DOI,” Hyzler said.