The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has recently issued his annual report for the year 2024. During 2024 the Commissioner received 19 complaints.

The Commissioner investigated 17 complaints and decided that a further 13 complaints did not warrant investigation. Closing a total of 30 complaints.

The number of pending complaints declined from 27 at the start of 2024 to 16 at the end of the year. The Commissioner found a breach of ethics in four cases. He closed two of these cases himself after receiving an apology, and he referred the other two cases to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Standards in Public Life.

One of the cases referred by the Commissioner to the Standards Committee concerned the engagement of the same person as a consultant by two Ministers in succession.

The Commissioner found that this person performed secretarial rather than consultancy work. He found both Ministers guilty of abuse of power and one of them guilty of favouritism.

The Committee accepted the Commissioner’s conclusions in this case. During the Standards Committee meeting, Ministers Clint Camilleri and Clayton Bartolo were admonished by the Parliamentary Committee for Standards in Public Life.

In the light of this case, the Commissioner said that he believes that “the law should be changed to make abuse of office by persons holding state office a criminal offence.”

The Commissioner said he believes that “this offence should cover wilful neglect of duty and misconduct in office, and it should apply to persons in political as well as administrative roles.”

The other case referred by the Commissioner to the Standards Committee concerned a promotional video featuring the Prime Minister. The Commissioner concluded that “the use of public funds to produce and circulate the video was not justified. In this case, however, the Committee did not accept the Commissioner’s conclusions.”

The annual report also notes that in September 2024, the Commissioner wrote to the Committee asking for the right to publish decisions not to investigate complaints. The Commissioner said that he made this request “because current practice as established by the Committee dictates that while reports on investigations can be published, decisions not to investigate complaints cannot be published.”

The Commissioner stated that he believes that “the time has come for some of these decisions to be published in the interest of transparency.”

It was noted that this was the third such request by the Commissioner, having already sent similar letters in June and December of 2023. However, this issue remains pending before the Committee.

The Commissioner’s annual report can be downloaded by clicking here.

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