Malta’s political class has to redeem itself, Standards czar tells MPs

The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has told MPs that Malta’s political class “had to redeem itself” and that it was his duty to help this happen.

George Hyzler was testifying in a committee of MPs in which he said it was wrong to simply accept that Joseph Muscat had done nothing wrong by leaving to the State a gift from Yorgen Fenech of three expensive Petrus win bottles.

Hyzler said Joseph Muscat was wrong to accept any such gift from a person whose business interests were so closely connected to government business.

George Hyzler said that he had no doubt that the present of three Petrus wine bottles on Muscat’s birthday in 2019 by Yorgen Fenech, the alleged mastermind in the Daphne Caruana Galizia assassination, had been a personal gift.

“It was a birthday party after all… nothing extraordinary about a gift. [But] The fact that Muscat chose to leave it to the State is secondary. Receiving it in the first place is the matter at heart. Indeed, the vintage of the three bottles, related to personal events in Muscat’s life, made the gift personal,” Hyzler said.

Hyzler intends drawing up a report that will propose a transparency register for MPs in which they will have to declare any gifts and their value above a certain amount.

Joseph Muscat breached the code of ethics when he accepted three expensive bottles of wine from Fenech, breaching five clauses of the code of ethics. In his report, Hyzler insisted that the former prime minister “should have known better” after having been critical in the past of ethical breaches by a minister in the previous administration.

But Hyzler today told MPs in the House standards committee that it was questionable that Muscat had invited someone like Yorgen Fenech – irrespective of his suspected role in the assassination – in the first place, inferring that Fenech’s business links with the state utility company should not have been invited to Girgenti in the first place. “Then, if I as prime minister accept such gifts… then my ministers would likewise feel comfortable accepting similar gifts. The PM should set the example.”

Fenech was one of a restricted number of invitees and on the occasion gifted Muscat three bottles of Petrus wines estimated at around €5,800. The news was first reported by The Times. At the time, Fenech was a suspect in the Caruana Galizia case since at least May 2018, and Muscat would have known since he had signed the warrant for the Secret Service to tap his phone. Fenech was arrested in November 2019.

Muscat refuted the commissioner’s assertion that the gifts constituted a conflict of interest, insisting that subsequent actions he took as prime minister led to Fenech’s arrest.