Speaker Anglu Farrugia has been asked to decide whether an ethics committee hearing into former Education Minister Justyne Caruana can be suspended.
Government MPs asked for the committee’s work to be suspended due to a constitutional case filed by Caruana.
The former minister’s lawsuit is seeking to challenge the validity of the law granting the Standards Commissioner “unfettered discretion” throughout the ethics probe which effectively breached Caruana’s right to a fair hearing, the former minister’s lawyers have claimed.
Opposition MPs hit back at the government’s request on Tuesday for a suspension, arguing that the law does not allow for committee hearings to be suspended.
PN MP Karol Aquilina said the attempt to suspend proceedings was just a ploy to ensure the delay of any decision until after the general election.
He said not even Caruana herself had asked for the committee's work to be suspended pending the court case.
Fellow PN MP Therese Comodini Cachia pointed out that criminal cases are not suspended when someone files a constitutional case, and neither does the government suspend a law when an ordinary citizen files a lawsuit challenging it.
“Are we treating an MP...
