{"id":3112,"date":"2019-11-07T21:49:42","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T20:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/?post_type=article&p=3112"},"modified":"2019-11-07T21:49:42","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T20:49:42","slug":"il-grillings-tal-kummissarji-qed-ikunu-esagerati","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/article\/il-grillings-tal-kummissarji-qed-ikunu-esagerati\/","title":{"rendered":"Are commissioner grillings going too far?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The European Parliament prides itself on its commitment to the rule of law. It presents itself as the most of rule of law committed body on the planet. It says much the same about its adherence to transparency and accountability.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Put it all together and you will get the most virtuous parliament imaginable.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every five years, parliament has a chance to demonstrate this by questioning the suitability of those designated by the EU member states as the new EU commissioners.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These are the\u202f<\/span>commissioner hearings<\/span><\/a>, when candidates have to show their suitability and knowledge of the portfolios they’ve been assigned.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some fail, some perform poorly. Technically, parliament can’t\u00a0<\/span>actually veto<\/span>\u00a0anyone, but it can make recommendations that are hard to override for political reasons.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point, matters become technical, so \u2013 a trigger warning \u2013 complexity follows.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The key here is that in these commissioner hearings politics and the law are very close to one another. The temptation to use legal rules and procedures for political ends is real and present.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In sum, parliament’s legal affairs committee (JURI in the jargon), is required to\u00a0<\/span>look into<\/span>\u00a0the financial affairs of the commissioner candidates and confirm that all is above board.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

JURI must ensure that the candidate’s financial declarations are “accurate and complete” and, the killer phrase, “whether it is possible to infer a conflict of interests”.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Infer” is so vague as to be an invitation, if not actually a temptation, to abandon legal criteria and go for political power instead.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  The European Parliament prides itself on its commitment to the rule of law. It presents itself as the most of rule of law committed body on the planet. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":3103,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":""},"issuem_issue":[139],"issuem_issue_categories":[],"issuem_issue_tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.8.8","language":"en","enabled_languages":["mt","en"],"languages":{"mt":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/3112"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3112"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/3112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3114,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/3112\/revisions\/3114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue?post=3112"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_categories?post=3112"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_tags?post=3112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}