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3 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 19 FEBRUARY 2020 NEWS We're Recruiting Join Our Team SENIOR PROFESSIONAL OFFICER (LEGAL) Permit no. 217/2019 Qualifications & Experience • MQF level 6 in Law; • A minimum of two years work experience in a Legal Office (will be considered an asset) Main Duties & Responsibilities • Provide advice and support to the Chief Officer Legal and the Chief Executive Officer on all matters related to the different units; • Assist various units on legal issues and assess legal documents to ensure the Agency's legal protection; • Be fully conversant with Acts pertaining to the assigned unit and oversee implementation; • Ensure that all legal formalities and other obligations related to the Unit are fulfilled in time; • Ensure that high level secrecy and privacy for all legal data is maintained within the Agency; • Translate policies into strategic plans; • Update leaflets and website information to reflect legislation changes; • Any other duties as directed by the Chief Officer Legal or the Chief Executive Officer. Interested persons are kindly requested to submit a letter of application and a detailed CV to recruitment@identitymalta.com by 23rd February 2020 ARCHITECT Elizabeth Ellul will not be retained chairper- son of the Planning Authority's commission that decides ODZ cases, MaltaToday has learnt. Sources said Ellul will not be re-ap- pointed chairperson of the planning com- mission, a post she has held for the past few years. Ellul controversially defended a planning application last year to develop a dilapidated building in Qala's pristine countryside in- to a villa with pool. The application by Gozitan de- velop Joseph Portelli was even- tually withdrawn after public outcry. Ellul had failed to declare a potential conflict of interest during proceedings after it was revealed that her husband, ar- chitect Andrew Ellul, represent- ed Portelli on another project. Ellul has been accused by envi- ronmentalists of failing to pro- tect the environment, having been the mastermind behind the ODZ policy that allows country rooms to be transformed into villas if it can be proved that someone resided there in the past. The policy opened the floodgates to some ridicu- lous applica- tions that saw mounds of rub- ble being turned in- to villas on the strength of an electoral registry entry way back in time.The ODZ policy is now being revised. The PA was transferred under the wings of Environment Min- ister Aaron Farrugia from Ian Borg's portfolio by Prime Minis- ter Robert Abela. The decision to place the au- thority in the same portfolio as the environment has given en- vironmentalists hope that plan- ning decisions would be more considerate to the environment. The decision not to retain Ellul in a lead role could be one such move in that direction. Controversial Elizabeth Ellul to be removed from ODZ planning commission chair CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The public call will be issued by the Public Service Commission, a constitutional body, and all those interested in the job can apply. The criteria for applying have yet to be determined. The Commis- sion will then whittle down the candidates to two. The prime minister will then choose one candidate of the two, but the chosen individual will then have to be scrutinised by Parliament's Public Appoint- ment Committee, which will be able to grill the candidate. The grilling will be televised. On the other hand, the Opposi- tion has proposed that the police chief should be appointed by a two-thirds parliamentary major- ity after being grilled by MPs. Camilleri said the govern- ment's proposed method satis- fied the Venice Commission's recommendations in this regard. He said that, following a video conference on the new method with the government, the Ven- ice Commission had "recognised this is a very positive proposal and takes us in the right direc- tion." The minister said the proposed method would "drastically reduce the involvement of politicians in the process" and would "avoid a possible situation of deadlock during which we wouldn't have a police commissioner." He said that, through the new method, the government was voluntarily relinquishing the prime minis- ter's power to appoint a police commissioner. PN MP Beppe Fenech Adami, however, completely disput- ed that the proposal meant the prime minister was letting go of his power to appoint the police commissioner, stressing that the new method was based on a number of untruths. The first concerned the claim that the prime minister's pow- er to veto a candidate was being removed, the home affairs shad- ow minister said. Fenech Adami said the proposed law would in fact be consolidating the right of the prime minister of the day to veto a prospective police chief, because, after the Public Service Commission chooses two candi- dates, the prime minister would then unilaterally decide which of them would be chosen to be brought forward to Parliament. The second untruth, he said, was that the police commissioner would be chosen by an independ- ent body. The government, he noted, had the power to appoint the majority of the members to the Public Service Commission, which had three government representatives and two from the Opposition. The third untruth, Fenech Ad- ami said, was that the appoint- ment process was transparents. "How is it transparent?" he asked, "The proposed law does not al- low the Maltese people to know on which basis the two candi- dates were chosen and we won't know how the prime minister decided to choose one and not the other, because the process is not transparent as the law is. As the law is, the prime minister will unilaterally choose one of the two candidates shortlisted by the Public Service Commission." The fourth untruth, he said, was that the Opposition could block the government's choice of com- missioner. He highlighted that the Public Appointments Com- mittee, like other parliamentary committees, had a majority of government members. "And with a simple majority, the govern- ment can approve a candidate. The Opposition has no power to stop this," he said. A final untruth, he said, was the government's insistence that the Opposition two-thirds ma- jority wouldn't work. He said that the experience in Malta was that posts which required a two- thirds majority had worked well. He underlined that this method was already employed for the ap- pointment of the Ombudsman and the Auditor General, both of whom enjoyed the faith of both government and Opposition. "This shows the two-thirds sys- tem works," he said. He said that what had emerged two months ago from the inves- tigations into Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder "had changed the political route of the country forever." "What happened between No- vember and January means things will never be the same again. So the people are shouting so that when a police commissioner is appointed, the government and Opposition be in agreement. This country can no longer stand to have a police commissioner who doesn't enjoy the people's sup- port," he added. Opposition claims proposed police chief appointment method is based on 'a number of untruths' Lawrence Cutajar was the fifth police commissioner since 2013