GRECO: Malta yet to tighten scrutiny of MPs’ ethical breaches

Malta has implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner four out of the nine recommendations from the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO), an anti-corruption monitoring board.

GRECO’s fourth evaluation round dealt with preventing corruption among MPs, judges and prosecutors, and is based on a situation report submitted by Malta back in May 2022.

But five recommendations from GRECO however remain non-implemented.

GRECO had recommended a thorough review of the current provisions of the Code of Ethics for MPs and the Standing Orders related to integrity, ethics, financial declarations and conflicts of interest. This was partly implemented wit ha new draft Code, but the 2022 elections brought discussions on the Code to a halt.

“Currently, no tangible progress has been achieved and the Code of Ethics, unfortunately remains the same now as it was at the adoption of the Evaluation Report, more than seven years ago. In addition, a new Parliament has recently been elected and will most certainly have its own agenda. There is no certainty that it will resume this issue,” GRECO said.

GRECO also recommended that measures be taken to ensure appropriate supervision and enforcement of the rules on the declaration of assets, financial interests and outside activities. This was partly implemented in previous compliance reports, with a Standards commissioner with supervisory functions appointed.

However, there were no sufficient sanctions available for late filing, false filing or failure to file the required financial reports. GRECO did not consider that the “reputational damage” alone was equivalent to “effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions”.

“The Maltese authorities do not provide new substantial information in respect of this recommendation. They reiterate their view that the ‘Ombudsman-type’ sanctions by the Commissioner, that is, to ‘name’ members of the parliament as being guilty of violating standards of conduct, are a sufficient dissuasive tool whose effectiveness is comparable to that of sanctions.

“GRECO notes that... there is some supervision by the Commissioner, but the sanctions at his/her disposal are not sufficient as already concluded in previous reports. GRECO concludes that recommendation ii remains partly implemented.”

In other recommendations, GRECO recommended the creation of confidential counselling to provide parliamentarians with advice on ethical questions, conflicts of interest in relation to their legislative duties, as well as financial declaration obligations; providing regular awareness-raising activities for members of parliament covering issues, such as ethics, conflicts of interest, acceptance of gifts, honoraria, hospitality and other advantages.

While welcoming the Commissioner’s new function to provide advice to public office-holders and the willingness to distinguish the regulatory from the advisory function of relevant bodies, it pointed out that the process was still at an early stage. “Apart from that, no new achievements have been reported regarding awareness-raising activities for MPs.”

As regards the judiciary, constitutional changes have paved the way for reinforcing the independence, impartiality and transparency of judicial appointments procedures. However, induction training programmes for newly appointed judges as well as in-service training need to be reinforced, together with targeted guidance and counselling on corruption prevention and judicial ethics. “In respect of prosecutors, the adoption of a Code of Ethics, including a number of safeguards for the independence of prosecutors in Malta has been a most welcome achievement.”

The adoption of this Second Addendum to the Second Compliance Report terminates the Fourth Round compliance procedure in respect of Malta. However, in view of the recommendations still outstanding, the Maltese authorities have been urged to do more, and are invited to keep GRECO informed of future progress on their implementation.