Prisoner Welfare Commissioner to be appointed in the coming days

A new prison Prisoner Welfare Commissioner will be announced in the coming days, a Home Affairs spokesperson has confirmed with MaltaToday.  

The new commissioner will be filling a post which has been vacant for more than three months, after former commissioner Mauro Farrugia resigned 12 weeks into the job.  

Farrugia had resigned for personal reasons, with the Home Affairs Ministry stating it would be appointing a commissioner according to the established procedure.  

No interim commissioner was appointed following Farrugia’s resignation.  

“Whilst a new commissioner will be announced in the coming days it must be said that at no point was there a vacuum since prisoners had other ways and means to voice their concerns primarily through the Prison Monitoring board,” a home affairs spokesperson said.  

The new commissioner will be the third in 18 months, as the first commissioner, Christopher Siegersma, had been appointed director of the Corradino Correction Facility in the wake of the resignation of Robert Brincau. 

What does the Prisoner Welfare Commissioner do? 

The post of prisons commissioner was one of the 32 recommendations forwarded by a government inquiry into prison operations, set up in the wake of the death of 30-year-old inmate Colin Galea, who died days after attempting suicide at the Corradino Correctional Facility.  

The inquiry also forced the resignation of maligned director Alex Dalli, a former army official who presided over a spike in deaths inside the Maltese prison. 

The prisons commissioner is tasked with examining the Correctional Services Agency’s safeguards and measures that are necessary to ensure that any treatment, decision or rules are in accordance with the law and established standards. 

The commissioner should also carry out regular inspections, at least monthly, of all prisons, to ascertain the rights of prisoners are being upheld. It is not yet clear whether the inspections were carried out in Farrugia’s absence.  

The individual charged with the position has unrestricted access to all parts of the facilities within the prisons and to prisoners’ records, as well as the right to interview any prisoner in such facility in private. 

A report on any possible breach of human rights, of any legislative breach, and any recommendations made by the Commissioner to the Corrective Services Agency during that year will be submitted to the Prison Board every June.