Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/809226
Opinion 25 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 9 APRIL 2017 though. This newspaper took an editorial stance against the appointment of the Electoral Commission as the Party Financing Law's official regulatory body. This, for instance, is from an editorial we ran last month: "the law made two cardinal mistakes. It allowed too much discretion to the parties, almost to the extent of making enrolment with the Party Financing Commission 'optional'; and two, it placed the Commission under the aegis of the Electoral Commission... which is itself politically appointed. [...] All this illustrates one of the chief obstacles to an effective reform. Political parties cannot be expected to regulate themselves, without building escape routes into the system." Fast-forward less than a month, and... my, just look how effective the 'escape route' has proved to be. Having approved the bill in parliament, the Nationalist Party supplied itself with all the ammunition necessary to use against its own investigators. Now that the Electoral Commission has been called to investigate – as per a law approved unanimously by the PN – it has objected on two specific grounds. One that the Commission cannot be trusted for all the above reasons; two, because the law permits it to play the part of both investigator and judge... which is 'unconstitutional'. Excuse me for asking, but... if the Commission was all along too untrustworthy to be appointed regulator... and if this law is suddenly so very 'unconstitutional'... then why the blazes did the PN approve it just last year? The Constitution itself hasn't changed in the meantime, you know. So if that law is 'unconstitutional' today, it will have been equally 'unconstitutional' when the PN unanimously voted in its favour. Ah, but then again... there are certain advantages to approving a party financing law which you know won't work in practice; especially when you also know that the law will be applied to your own party far more than to others. Quite crafty, when you think about it. Simon Busuttil gave himself and his party the perfect 'escape route' there. And an ironic one, too... as what makes the Commission so 'untrustworthy' is partly the fact that PN itself appointed four of its nine members in the first place. So I guess by the same token, the PN shouldn't really trust itself, either (judging by that party's recent history, I'd say it would be wise not to). But the question remains: why should the rest of us trust the Electoral Commission to regulate party financing? I for one certainly do not, and these are my reasons: 1) Investigating crimes is not the job of an electoral commission. It's a little weird that I should even point this out, but... why not, while we're at it, appoint any other constitutionally- appointed body that has nothing whatsoever to do with law enforcement? Why not the Planning Authority, for instance? Or the Water Services Corporation? Or the NCPE? Or even the V18 committee? Every one of those entities is every bit as qualified as the Electoral Commission to undertake police work. That is to say, not qualified in the slightest. Yet that is precisely what the party financing law has done. It has transferred the onus of investigating certain financial crimes (the ones committed by political parties) away from where it should be – the police – to an entity which has no business whatsoever to be investigating any form of crime at all. The very idea that an electoral commission should even think of playing Sherlock Holmes is, in fact, utterly ridiculous. How could anyone possibly take it seriously even for a second? 2) It is not even remotely impartial Let us for a moment imagine that we were talking about any other form of law-enforcement here. What are the basic pre- requisites for a fair trial? The judge has to be disinterested in proceedings. The jury (where applicable) has to be impartial. The investigating officers would have to ensure that there are no personal links of any kind with the subjects of the investigation. These are pretty darn fundamental principles, too. In a criminal case, the defence would move for a mistrial if any were in any way infringed. In this case, however... how do you even begin to apply those principles? The chair of the Electoral Commission owes his position directly to the Prime Minister (who just happens to be the leader of a political party). How's that for being 'disinterested in proceedings'? As for the rest of the board: leaving aside that they are unaccountably all male (and therefore wouldn't even qualify as a jury in a criminal court)... well, one of them is also the PN's own lawyer, Dr Joe Zammit Maempel; Another is a former president of the PN, Victor Scerri. On the Labour side there is at least one former MP (Salvu Sant). Others – though to be fair, not all – are what you would call trusted party insiders on both sides. As such, they themselves were (in some cases still are) part and parcel of the same party system they are now supposed to be investigating. They know perfectly well what their own parties were up to all those years. It had never even been an issue before. Now, however, these political appointees are expected to suddenly forget any part they may have once played in the intricate machinery of party financing, and treat what was previously 'business as usual' as a 'crime'. And we, by extension, are expected to 'have faith' in an investigation that can only be inconclusive at best; highly politicised at worst. Sorry, but no. 'Faith' is simply too much to ask for under the circumstances. GourmetToday every Saturday 16.05pm on TVM The all-male electoral commission includes four members appointed by the opposition