Register does not mean legislators can rest easy – Beppe Fenech Adami

Speaking in Parliament about the upcoming Protection of Minors Act that will establish a register for sex offenders and others who commit crimes involving minors, the Nationalist parliamentary member affirmed it would be a mistake to “rest easy.”

“This is a law that is a step in the right direction but we should not rest easy as this law does not solves the possibility of abuse now or in the future,” Fenech Adami said.

He added that this law should not serve as, or be interpreted as, a way of perceiving individuals working with children “as individuals who, at the back of their minds, intend to abuse children.”

He affirmed that “the vast majority of these are people” who are there who are part of the nurturing chain that raises and rears our young are genuine people who selflessly contribute towards the development of our children. He referred to those working within schools, sporting associations and institutions that care for children such as those that form part of the church.

“Their good work is rarely publicized, but thanks to their work, which goes unannounced, many children would have not been helped along the way,” Fenech Adami said.

However, Fenech Adami conceded, “there are always people who will try to abuse of their position – the scope of this law is to ensure that as much as possible, the law creates a deterrents, instills fear, and gives reason for abusers to think twice before the committing an offence.”

He affirmed how in this regard Malta “is not inventing the wheel”, pointing out that the original idea to establish a sex offenders register was born elsewhere. He referred to the birth of the first register in the U.S. prompted by a “shocking” case in New Jersey where an eight-year-old girl was sexually abused and murdered by a repeat-offender sexual predator.

He referred to the popular line of thought that demands that any sex offenders register is open to access to the public without restrictions. This line of thought, Fenech Adami said, assumes that the more the identities of sex offenders are publicized, the more children and protected.

However, he said that a consequence of this approach would be, in his opinion, negative because “the moment a situation arose where the names of people on the register were accessible by everyone without restrictions, problems intensified.”

He said that “the consequences were that the public victimized these individuals who sometimes might have needed help themselves and even sometimes chased out of communities.”

He cited “absurd situations” where tabloid papers in the UK regularly published details and pictures of people on the register – “with the consequence of fomenting widespread unrest and inciting violence that was not part of the original scope of the register.”

Fenech Adami affirmed support for that he described as the government’s “balanced approach” in that while the government recognises the need for such a register, it also recognizes that the register shouldn’t be available to everyone but only those who truly need to have access.

“There is nobody who needs to know more than those employers, instructions, or organizations who deal with children on a regular basis,” he affirmed. These, he agreed, should be allowed to access the register through established and formalized procedure.

He also reiterated that it is “useless to have a law that inhibits a person from being a part of these registers and then does not assure a means for this to actually happen.”

“Good intentions not enough,” Fenech Adami said, pointing out how this law imposes legal fines and obligations to ensure that the effectively imposes an obligation on officials to check whether a new employee is on the register or not.

He also cited the much-debated retroactivity of the register – as many, including the Commissioner for Children, have called for a retroactive register. Fenech Adami pointed out that people are ‘usually in favour of the act being retroactive.” He however expressed himself in favour with the government’s approach of a non-retroactive register.

“It is an issue of human rights,” he said, advocating a perspective that considers the debate on an international level. “One needs to recognise the fact that the register is part of the punishment and that cardinal legal principle cannot be circumvented or ignored,” he said.

He also spoke about the court’s option of putting an individual on the register while the court case is still being heard as an interim measure – affirming that similar interim measures already exist. Even provisory liberty is granted on certain conditions, he said.

In his closing statement, Fenech Adami reiterated that the register does not cover first time offenders, and we should still be careful in this regard. Nevertheless we shouldn’t be untrusting of everyone, he conceded. “We should trust with open eyes.”