Commissioner for Standards says he cannot rule on PM's refusal to answer parliamentary questions

The Commissioner for Standards, has concluded an investigation, demanded by politician Arnold Cassola, on the Prime Minister's refusal to give answers to parliamentary questions.

The issue was raised after Prime Minister Robert Abela dodged PN MP Ivan Bartolo's parliamentary question on media spending, refusing to answer the question since it exceeded the ‘advisory cost limit’, which meant it was disproportionately expensive to collect the information necessary to answer it.

The Commissioner's conclusion was that only the Speaker can rule on what happens in parliament and that he had no jurisdiction to interfere in the Speaker's decisions. 

“But then the Speaker says he cannot rule anything on such cases since there is no provision for this in Parliament's standing orders,” Cassola said.

The Commissioner of Standards has reiterated that he cannot interfere in the Speaker's decisions or lack thereof. The shortcomings identified could be rectified by amending standing orders but “the Standards Commissioner could not interfere in an area which falls under the authority of the Speaker,” Hyzler decided.

“The end result of such "passing the buck" exercises is that in practice Members of Parliament are free to lie and/or avoid scrutiny,” Cassola said.

"In the past days the Standards Commissioner has been subjected to vicious attacks by Minister Edward Zammit Lewis, MP Glenn Bedingfield as well as Prime Minister Robert Abela, all with the clear intention to undermine his work. I sincerely hope that this attack on Commissioner Hyzler and his team is not conditioning them in their honest and unbiased decisions" said the politician.

“Members of Parliament are free to lie and/or avoid scrutiny,” Independent politician Arnold Cassola said in reaction to the conclusion.