Opinion: Speaker is still throttling democracy

Speaker Anglu Farrugia is at it again, suppressing the Opposition and denying it every opportunity to express the people’s frustration with Labour’s scandals and incompetence.

After 226kg of cannabis resin went missing from the AFM’s barracks in Hal Safi, the Opposition asked the Speaker to hold a no-confidence vote against Minister Byron Camilleri.

The Speaker pulled his usual trick and rejected the PN’s motion of no confidence in the Home Affairs Minister.

Farrugia’s excuse was that it would take him at least three days to consider such a substantial motion.

PN Leader Bernard Grech tried again. He asked the Speaker to allow parliament to continue discussing the shocking 226kg drug heist.

Again, Farrugia blocked the request, declaring that Prime Minister Robert Abela had already addressed all the questions about the stolen drugs and that there was no point in extending the discussion further.

Once again, the Speaker shielded the government from scrutiny, sparing the prime minister the embarrassment of confronting the disturbing truth.

The Speaker should enable debate and encourage scrutiny of the executive by MPs from all sides.

His role is to ensure the substantial segment of the electorate represented by the Opposition is allowed to voice its concerns and dissent in parliament.

Farrugia’s mission should be to guarantee that the hottest issues are discussed openly and that dissenting views are heard.  That’s why we have representatives in our legislative body.  Plurality of opinion, healthy debate and criticism are vital for our democracy.

Instead, Farrugia kills debate, stifles opposition and undermines every effort to confront an arrogant detached government.

He’s been doing it since Joseph Muscat elevated him to his position to keep him quiet after he started spilling the beans about Labour’s Mile-end fourth floor.

The most shocking irony is that Farrugia blocked another opposition no-confidence motion during the very week when it was revealed that former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri allegedly leaked inside information about Vince Muscat, il-Koħħu, to Yorgen Fenech.

Schembri allegedly alerted Fenech that one of the hitmen in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, Vince Muscat, was cooperating with the police.

Schembri called Fenech on his mobile phone.  The two were continuously messaging each other from January 2019 until Fenech’s arrest in November 2019.

Schembri relayed confidential documents to Fenech at least twice, according to evidence being presented in court. In January 2019, he sent Yorgen Fenech a court decree before it had even been released, and the following month, he sent Fenech a confidential internal police email.

Schembri was endangering people’s lives by revealing that Muscat was “squealing”.

The Speaker was the main reason Keith Schembri remained OPM chief of staff until 2019, allegedly exposing state secrets. In May 2016, Farrugia killed another motion of no confidence – against Schembri.

Marlene Farrugia had initially presented the motion over the Panama papers revelations.  She proposed the formation of an ad hoc parliamentary committee to investigate Schembri. But the Speaker leapt to Schembri’s rescue.

He ruled that Schembri was not answerable to parliament.  He prevented Marlene Farrugia from holding Schembri to account.

The Opposition presented a motion appealing the Speaker’s decision to block the no confidence motion. But Labour voted down that motion. Then, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici warned that if parliament allowed the no confidence motion to pass, it would create an “ugly precedent.”

Bonnici said: “Do we want to reach a stage where the government of the day can use its parliamentary majority to chuck out anybody in the public service?” He hit out at the Opposition for “damaging the country’s institutions”.

In April 2018, Anglu Farrugia was given another opportunity to show that he owned a spine.  Again, he blocked parliamentary questions about Schembri.

The questions related to Schembri’s attendance at Pilatus Bank chairman Ali Sadr Hashenminejad’s wedding, which was also attended by Yorgen Fenech (facing charges for his involvement in the brutal murder of Caruana Galizia) and disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat.

The Speaker also blocked questions about how often Muscat had met the Pilatus chairman before his wedding.  Farrugia ruled that these questions were against standing orders.

Farrugia also blocked questions about Schembri’s secret offshore accounts stating that questions should have “a factual basis and not seek confirmation of media rumours”.  The Speaker ruled that questions raised about Schembri were not “in the public’s interest.”

Farrugia deviously claimed that Schembri’s offshore accounts were just “media rumours“. He twisted the rules and misinterpreted the standing orders to enable Schembri to retain his post by helping him keep his offshore companies, his close relationship with Ali Sadr Hasheminejad and Yorgen Fenech, and his Pilatus bank account secret.

Schembri now faces prosecution for money laundering using the same Pilatus bank account that the Speaker tried to stop us from finding. He also faces prosecution for sharing state secrets and highly sensitive documents with Yorgen Fenech.

Anglu Farrugia was responsible for attempting to keep all this secret. For the Speaker, legitimate questions about the prime minister’s chief of staff were not of public interest.

As more and more of Schembri’s alleged crimes surface, we are faced with the stark reality that they were enabled by the same man who still sits in the Speaker’s chair.

Farrugia is an utter disgrace.  His devious bootlicking of his political masters is nauseating.  He sold his soul, for his seat, and probably his daughter’s job in the judiciary.

He is the utter personification of the typical Labour appointee – a thoroughly incompetent spineless fool without a molecule of dignity or self-respect.

He is so dangerously incompetent that Joseph Muscat felt compelled to sack him, only to bribe him into silence soon after with the Speaker’s chair from where he’s been damaging the country ever since.