Standards commissioner will not publish ethics complaint decisions

Parliament's permanent committee on standards in public life has agreed that the Standards Commissioner should not have the power to unilaterally publish decisions on ethics complaints, leaving that right instead with the parties directly involved in each case.

The committee reached consensus that both the person who filed a complaint and the person it was made against should each have the right to publish the commissioner's report, or any part of it, as they see fit.

Under the arrangement agreed by the committee, once the commissioner concludes that a complaint does not merit an investigation, the report is sent to both parties. From that point, either party may choose to publish it.

The logic is that a person cleared of any wrongdoing retains full freedom to make that finding public.

The committee ultimately decided the current framework should remain in place without granting the commissioner independent publication powers.

Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi wrote to parliament in January asking that he be allowed to publish dismissal decisions. He argued that current secrecy rules allow political media to misrepresent his findings.

His request stemmed from a decision in December when he declined to investigate a claim that Opposition Leader Alex Borg made false statements regarding generic medicines.

He said he would not investigate the matter because the code of ethics does not explicitly include an obligation of honesty.