Not Urgent: Parliament Will Not Reconvene To Discuss No Confidence Motion In Edward Zammit Lewis
Parliament will not be reconvening to discuss a no-confidence motion in Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis after Speaker Anglu Farrugia ruled that there was no urgent need for the motion to be discussed.
On Monday, the PN tabled a no-confidence motion in the minister after press reports revealing conversations he had with alleged Caruana Galizia murder mastermind Yorgen Fenech.
The messages between the pair show Zammit Lewis mocking efforts by then Opposition leader Simon Busuttil to have an inquiry launched into the company 17 Black, later shown to belong to Fenech.
In one exchange, Zammit Lewis sends Fenech a link to a report from a Labour Party press conference he had given together with then MP Robert Abela, following a magistrate’s decision not to open a separate inquiry into 17 Black, suggesting that he was aware of Fenech’s ownership of it.
The PN’s motion calls on MPs to demand Zammit Lewis’ resignation.
In deciding on the matter, the Speaker noted that there was no agreement from the government side for an urgent sitting to be held, noting that Parliament’s standing orders did not clearly define urgent.
He added that for a matter to be urgent it needed to constitute something that is “definite and of clear public importance”.
The PN’s motion did not qualify as urgent by the Speaker’s assessment.
Reacting to the decision, the PN said that Prime Minister Robert Abela had failed his first test since the publication of the public inquiry.
“Robert Abela has failed at what was his first opportunity to accept the conclusions of the public inquiry because he wasn’t able to understand that Edward Zammit Lewis should no longer occupy the position of a government minister,” the PN said.
“It is clear that Robert Abela’s hands are tied when it comes to taking action against certain members of his cabinet.”
The PN accused Abela of having taken a different stance when it came to MP Rosianne Cutajar, who was forced to resign her Parliamentary Secretary role earlier this year after she was revealed to have been involved in a property deal involving Fenech.
An ethics probe by the Standards Commissioner into the allegations found that Cutajar had indeed breached MPs’ code of ethics by not declaring the income from the deal.
Education Minister Justyne Caruana was forced to resign from her role as Gozo Minister shortly after Abela was sworn in as Prime Minister after her estranged husband Silvio Valletta’s links to Fenech were made public.
Zammit Lewis has rejected calls for his resignation, insisting that nothing new had been published about him and that he had made his relationship with Fenech known.
What do you make of this?
READ NEXT: Simon Busuttil Calls For President George Vella’s Resignation Following Public Inquiry
