A wide-ranging Bill which came before Parliament this evening will tighten existing laws against the sexual exploitation of children, including cases where the offender abuses of a recognised position of trust, authority or influence.
The Maltese courts would also be able to consider cases where the crime would have been committed abroad.
The Bill also plugs loopholes in other sections of the Criminal Code, introducing corporate liability where a company is found to have assisted in serious crime such as drug trafficking.
At the request of the Attorney General, the Criminal Court is also being empowered to issue Monitoring Orders for the banks to monitor and report the banking activity of persons suspected of involvement in serious crime.
Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg, who is piloting the debate, said the Bill would introduce in Maltese legislation various EU directives and international conventions against the sexual exploitation of children, trafficking in human beings and financing of terrorism.
The Bill amends the Criminal Code, the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance and the Medical and Kindred Professions Ordinance in order to ratify and bring into force the EU’s 2000 Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance; the EU’s framework decision of December 2003 on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography; the optional protocol of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; the Council of Europe Convention on laundering, search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime and on the financing of terrorism; the Convention on the protection of the European Communities’ financial instruments and the protocols to it, and the Council of Europe Convention on action against trafficking in human beings.
Dr Borg explained that with regard to child pornography, it was already illegal in Malta to possess child pornography but this Bill would further strengthen existing legislation.
Going into detail, Dr Borg said inducement of under-aged persons to prostitution and/or pornography would be punishable by jail terms. The punishment would become more severe when the life of the under-aged person was endangered, when the offence involved violence and when the offence was committed with the involvement of a criminal organisation.
Furthermore, whoever took part in sexual activities with an under-aged person would be liable to imprisonment for a term of between one year and three years, with or without solitary confinement. In such cases too, the punishment would become more severe when there was violence, when money was involved or when the offender abused of a recognised position of trust, authority or influence.
It would also be a crime for anyone to record, possess, import, distribute, transmit or show any child pornography.
Some of these elements had already existed in the law, but the punishment was being made more severe, the minister said.
Turning to other provisions of the Bill, Dr Borg said there were provisions on corporate liability in criminal cases. A company could, for example, be involved in financing drug crime, knowingly or through negligence, he said. Lack of supervision or control by a physical person could expose a company to liability, he said, and it could not hide behind the corporate veil. This would also apply to fraud of EU funds.
In terms of other Criminal Code amendments, property which was the fruit of criminal activity could be seized (frozen) in a preventive manner as soon as court proceedings were instituted and not at the end of proceedings, when “the bird would have flown”. In such cases there would also be exceptions to bank secrecy so that such secrecy would not be used to hide criminal activity. The Attorney General would be able to request the Criminal Court to issue a Monitoring Order requiring the banks to monitor for specified periods, banking operations being carried out by a person suspected of committing serious crime and report on that monitoring.
Turning to the amendments on the Money Laundering Act, Dr Borg said the definition of money laundering was being tightened so that a person could be convicted of laundering money which he should have known about or suspected. As in the case of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance the Attorney General may decide whether to assign a money laundering case to the Magistrates’ Court or the Superior Courts.
Dr Borg was followed by Opposition home affairs spokesman Gavin Gulia who said the Opposition would vote in favour of this Bill. He also questioned whether the time had come for Malta to have a register of child offenders or some other less formal notification mechanism.