Speaker orders Prime Minister’s security to leave parliament’s Strangers’ Gallery

Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia ordered members of the Prime Minister’s security detail to leave parliament’s Strangers’ Gallery on Tuesday afternoon.

However, the House only got to know of the action taken to evict the security personnel after Opposition MP Karol Aquilina raised the issue at the tail end of a ministerial declaration by Prime Minister Robert Abela.

“The presence of the Prime Minister’s security detail, including police officers and members of the country’s Security Service, in the Strangers’ Gallery is an act of intimidation against MPs,” Aquilina said.

Earlier, the MP had noticed a commotion in the Strangers’ Gallery and approached the Clerk of the House to understand what was happening. Aquilina told parliament the Clerk of the House acknowledged the presence of the Prime Minister’s security personnel and confirmed that immediate steps were taken to ask them to leave.

Following Aquilina’s intervention, the Speaker said action had been taken but offered no explanation as to how the security officers had been allowed into the Strangers’ Gallery in the first place.

There are no specific rules on the presence of the police inside the chamber but there is an understanding that police officers only enter the House when ordered to by the Speaker. The Speaker has absolute discretion to ask strangers following a parliamentary session to leave the House.

According to the standing orders governing parliamentary procedure, “strangers may be present at the sittings of the House” but these must withdraw when called upon to do so by the Speaker.

The standing orders make it clear that “no strangers are admissible as of right” at sittings of the House.

People attending parliamentary session must “stay uncovered and be silent”. They cannot express approval or disapproval.

This afternoon’s parliamentary session, which was taken up by a ministerial declaration on the army drugs heist, once again descended into a shouting match.

Opposition MPs accused the Prime Minister of being scant on the details of the heist and more interested in criticising the Opposition.

On the other hand, the Prime Minister gave very little information on the heist and avoided giving replies to some of the questions put to him, such as whether airport security was adequate in view of the fact that the theft happened from an army base. At one point the Prime Minister took a dig at the Opposition by referring to a presidential pardon handed down to a drug trafficker in the 1990s by a Natioanlist administration. He quoted from a damning letter penned by the Attorney General at the time that slammed the administration over the pardon.