Farrugia's 13-Year Speakership: The Rulings That Drew Scrutiny

Prime Minister Robert Abela has announced that former minister Carmelo Abela will succeed Anġlu Farrugia as Speaker of the House of Representatives, ending a tenure that stretched across three legislatures and roughly 13 years. ' Farrugia took the chair in 2013 and presided through the aftermath of the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia and the prolonged controversy surrounding the hospitals concession.

His tenure drew sharply divided assessments, most persistently over rulings in which his conclusions diverged from findings made by the Standards Commissioner. In 2021, the Standards Commissioner found that former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had abused his power by awarding ex-minister Konrad Mizzi an €80,000-a-year consultancy job within days of Mizzi's resignation. Farrugia ruled that Muscat could not be summoned for parliamentary questioning on the grounds that he was no longer a sitting MP.

A separate Standards Commissioner finding concluded that Prime Minister Robert Abela had breached the code of ethics by financing and broadcasting a propaganda video with public funds. Farrugia absolved Abela, citing a legal loophole: the advertising guidelines Abela had violated had not yet been transposed into law. Farrugia's decision not to publicly reprimand Labour Minister Rosianne Cutajar drew the sharpest personal criticism of his speakership.

The Standards Commissioner found Cutajar in breach of parliamentary ethics for concealing her brokerage role in a property transaction connected to Yorgen Fenech, the businessman accused of complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. ' Farrugia also blocked the Opposition from tabling a no-confidence motion against then-Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri following a cannabis heist from a secure Armed Forces of Malta compound.

Camilleri subsequently moved to the Education portfolio. In 2023, the Nationalist Party — at the time led by Adrian Delia — brought a parliamentary motion after successfully having the hospitals concession rescinded. Farrugia granted the government additional speaking time during the debate; government MPs used that window to amend the motion, prompting the Opposition to walk out.

The controversy centred on Farrugia's management of parliamentary procedure rather than any Standards Commissioner finding. Farrugia also accepted Labour MP Glenn Bedingfield's claim that an article in The Shift News's Disinformation Watch series — which exposed alleged government manipulation of information related to the Panama Papers — was jeopardising the rights of the accused. The Standards Commissioner separately determined that Economy Minister Silvio Schembri had given Parliament false information about how many direct orders the Malta Gaming Authority had issued and their total value.

Farrugia stated that the Speaker's role does not extend to judging whether an MP or minister was lying. Not every ruling broke in the government's favour. When Carmelo Abela — now designated to take the chair — was found by the Standards Commissioner to have spent €7,000 of taxpayers' money on promotional adverts in breach of ethical standards, Farrugia abstained rather than cast a deciding vote.

And Farrugia did rule against former tourism minister Clayton Bartolo, who was forced out of his ministerial role after being found to have awarded lucrative public contracts to his wife.