Simon Busuttil appeals Speaker's Ruling

Simon Busuttil has appealed a ruling by the Speaker disallowing him from asking two parliamentary questions on whether Keith Schembri, the prime minister's chief of staff, had overseas bank accounts. In a ruling on Wednesday, Dr Farrugia said questions to ministers had to relate to their responsibilities and must be based on established facts, not media reports.  Last week, Dr Busuttil attempted to ask the prime minister whether his chief of staff had bank accounts in Dubai or in Pilatus Bank, but the Speaker also disallowed the questions. In a Facebook post on Friday, Dr Busuttil, the Nationalist Party’s spokesman for good governance, described the ruling as “a very dangerous precedent” limiting parliamentary work in a way which was not acceptable in a democracy. He said he was dedicating his appeal to Daphne Caruana Galizia, “who paid the ultimate price for her crusade against corruption and abuse of power in Malta”. Dr Busuttil’s appeal motion calls for the ruling to be revised. He argued that in a parliamentary democracy it was basic that a Prime Minister should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny as much as it was evident that the Prime Minister was responsible for the...