Franco Debono meets Italian Constitutional commissioner

Law Commissioner Franco Debono was in Rome last week to discuss Constitutional reforms and party financing legislation with Anna Finocchiaro who is currently President of the Commission on Constitutional Affairs at the Italian Senate.

Party financing legislation topped the meeting's agenda and Debono described the meeting as fruitful.

"I am pleased and comforted by the fact that the Italian reform will prioritise the registration of parties and statutory changes," Debono said.

Last week, the Italian government proposed a gradual abolition of state financing of political parties by 2017, gradually replacing the current system with financing by private citizens.

The popularity of Italy's parties has been eroded by decades of wasteful spending and corruption scandals.

"Unfortunately in Italy they put party financing ahead of transparency, however the law which I drafted and which should be discussed in Parliament shortly puts transparency before party financing itself," Debono said.

Debono, who will also head the Constitutional Reform process, had drafted a party financing bill during the previous legislature.

The new Labour government has pledged that the party financing law would be given priority in its first months in office together with the whistleblowers act and the law to remove time-barring on political corruption, which was moved last week.

The government had made it clear that the law would be based on Debono's draft bill, in which he had proposed a number of reforms, including the registration of political parties and the inclusion of provisions in party statutes ensuring transparency and internal democracy.

However, last year, Debono had distanced himself from a draft bill the government presented to he Council of Europe's group of states against corruption, GRECO, raising the alarm over its high thresholds for the disclosure of party donors.

The draft law proposed by the Maltese government did not restrict donations made by political party members, and set a very high €10,000 ceiling for the publication of the names of other donors.

The Maltese government divulged the contents of its proposed law, regulating the way political parties should declare from where they get their donations, when replying to GRECO's queries on Malta's compliance to a report issued in 2009.

GRECO objected to the distinction made in the new law between party and non-party members and described the €10,000 threshold for the publication of the names of other donors as "critically high".

Debono had objected to the draft presented by the previous administration in a letter he sent to GRECO, the former MP had pointed out that he disassociated himself completely from the bill drafted by Dr Ugo Mifsud Bonnici from within the Drafting Unit and noted that he had already advised the government not to send it to GRECO because it was highly inadequate and definitely unacceptable.

Subsequently, Debono's original version was than accepted by the PN administration soon after Chris Said took over the justice portfolio. In 2012, the previous governmnet had planned a number of visits in which Debono and Said were to visit a number of countries, including the UK, Germany and Italy, to discuss the party financing law. However, a planned trip to Westminister was cancelled due to the former minister falling sick.

In Italy, Finocchiaro, who is also the leader of the Democratic Party in the upper-house, will pilot the reform of party financing.

Proposals to abolish parry financing gained popularity and became a signature policy proposal of the populist 5-Star Movement led by comic Beppe Grillo, which won a quarter of the votes in February's election.

A referendum to scrap party financing was overwhelmingly passed in 1993 but its outcome was substantially ignored. The previous form of direct financing was replaced with generous reimbursements of money parties spent in election campaigns.

Under the government's bill, which must be passed by both houses of parliament, current public financing would be reduced by 40% in the first year after the law is passed, 50% in the second year and 60% in the third. In the fourth year state financing would be fully phased out.

When the new system of private financing is in place, citizens who choose to make contributions to political parties will be able to deduct the payments from their taxes.

Debono was accompanied by Malta's ambassador in Rome, Carmel Inguanez  and Lara Lanfranco, a lawyer at Attorney General's Office.