Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1472871
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 10 JULY 2022 NEWS AN eventful four years have come and gone for George Hy- zler, Malta's first Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, and no political observer can under- estimate the quality of the inves- tigations that have allowed us to shed a new light on the way politicians must dishcarge their duties. Yet only the gradual bolster- ing and reinforcement of Mal- ta's system of checks and bal- ances can serve as an antidote to abuse in governance, Hyzler, now the outgoing standards czar, tells MaltaToday as he readies to take up the post of member of the European Court of Auditors. He can look back at an in- tensive four-year experience in which he gave his office the necessary character and spine that makes his act a hard one to follow for his successor. "The abuse... will not stop without more checks and bal- ances, consequences. That is why my office has commis- sioned a review of lobbying rules, and amendments to the Standards in Public Life Act, which will be formally present- ed to the government on 11 Ju- ly." Hyzler's work has also includ- ed revising the current code of ethics for ministers and MPs, as well as proposals to bolster their declaration of interests and assets, a first draft of which will be presented in September. But it's not just this kind of legislative work that marked Hyzler's time in office. Armed with a necessary distance from partisan politics, Hyzler had sparred with errant ministers, their aides and the government MPs who have attempted to spear him during some con- frontations in the parliamenta- ry committee for standards. "Whoever gets to this kind of job, will need a thick skin," Hyzler says. "We draw up re- ports that impact upon people personally, upon their careers. I would have preferred not having to deal with cases which required this kind of action, but for the first time we have an institution that names and shames. And the consequences of that shaming has been wit- nessed." Indeed, many of Hyzler's successful investigations have led to unequivo- cal resignations, chiefly among them those of parlia- mentary secretary Rosianne Cutajar, over her role in the alleged brokering of a property sale for the magnate Yorgen Fenech, now facing charges of master- minding the Caruana Galizia assassination; as well as that of education minister Justyne Caruana, who gifted her part- ner a €15,000 direct contract with the connivance of the ministry's permanent secre- tary, Frank Fabri. Both cas- es were revealed by the press, chiefly MaltaToday. "I did not require anyone to resign, because that is not what my office does," Hyzler says. "What I did was to report, on a prima facie basis, on wheth- er there were any shortcom- ings on standards. And I offer my recommendations. Had I recommended resignations it would have led to endless de- bates and comparisons with other countries." And while Hyzler's revelatory reports became sources of em- barrassment for the impugned MPs, it also became a prob- lem for the government and party itself. "The other MPs... don't like having to stick up for you," he says, characterising the manner in which standards committee MPs have to delib- erate on the conclusions of his reports and reprimands. "If an MP or minister does something that has benefited them per- sonally, and amounts to mis- conduct, then other MPs don't want to defend them, consid- ering that MPs' real elector- al contests are often between their very own colleagues, es- pecially those from the same district." But beyond that kind of bi- zarre element of Maltese pol- itics, Hyzler hopes he has also set the higher example for MPs to follow. "I do hope something has entered their mindset, in that they are being watched. Indeed, there have been a num- ber of MPs who have checked with us, on an informal basis, certain actions they might had had doubts about." Hyzler's investiga- tions have also pro- duced concrete devel- opments in terms of government protocols: they include the two sets of guidelines on ministers' and MPs' personal advertising, and social media us- age where ministerial resources were used to promote personal political pages, leading to the creation of official government social media pages. But as his own investigation in the Justyne Caruana-Bog- danovic scandal showed, Mal- ta's 'in-built' system of good governance – the civil service – can often be the culprit when it fails to stop ministers from doing the wrong thing. I point out that in the latest season of Netflix's Danish political dra- ma Borgen – a world far re- moved from the kind of power that the Maltese executive ar- rogates for itself, where minis- ters take in trusted friends as advisors and 'chiefs of staff' – the civil service actively keeps the elected minister in line with the rules set for them. In the ensuing plotline of Season 4, minister Brigitte Nyborg de- nies knowledge of Russian oil interests in Greenland, during a confidential foreign policy committee meeting with fel- low coalition ministers and Opposition members. When the press discovers that Ny- borg 'lied', she is held to be in breach of the 'Ministerial Ac- countability Act'. Not only is it a law that binds ministers to be accountable and truthfully so; but Nyborg's permanent sec- retary – who runs her ministry and advises her loyally – in- forms her it is his duty that she complies with the ministerial accountability act. That is: that she does not lie. "Permanent secretaries must have the proverbials to say it," Hyzler observes, when I point out the glaring contradiction even in egregious cases as that of Frank Fabri, who complied with Justyne Caruana's favour to her lover. "The civil service Prefect of discipline Outgoing standards czar George Hyzler tells his successor they will need a thick hide to take on the Maltese political class. By Matthew Vella The Borgen effect In the Netflix fiction Borgen, when the press discovers that Danish foreign minis- ter Brigitte Nyborg 'lied' to a foreign affairs committee, she is held to be in breach of the 'Ministerial Accountabil- ity Act'. Not only is it a law that binds ministers to be accountable and truthfully so; but Nyborg's permanent secretary – who runs her ministry and advises her loyally – informs her it is his duty that she complies with the ministerial accountabili- ty act. That is: that she does not lie. "The civil service should be telling the minister not to do something that is patently wrong, to protect that same minister! If a perm- sec does not have the guts to do it, then they must think that the minister will get away with it..."