The OECD defines open government as a culture of governance based on the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation. The Ombudsman Office is an institution that traditionally interacts closely with citizens and acts as a guardian of citizen rights and as a mediator with the public administration.
The Environment and Planning Commissioner Alan Saliba ruled that the Building Regulations Office (BRO) should not have abdicated from its responsibility to compile a register of contractors by entrusting the Malta Developers Association to undertake this task.
The BRO disagreed with the Ombudsman’s judgment and will presumably not implement the recommendation.
This is not the first time that the Ombudsman Office has ruled against a government decision. Earlier this year Health Commissioner Charles Messina said that since 2016 the Ombudsman had been denied access to the contract signed between the Health Ministry and Vitals, the operators that were awarded the original management contract for three public hospitals.
Mr Messina publicly declared that, in his opinion, the authority of the Ombudsman was being undermined.
A few months ago Parliamentary Ombudsman Anthony Mifsud said that a number of final opinions had been sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives following negative response from the public authorities to requests to implement the Ombudsman’s recommendations. Understandably, the Ombudsman concluded that the statutory procedure provided for in the Ombudsman Act, which was meant to be a final safeguard to provide redress against injustice to aggrieved citizens, is proving to the ineffective.
The systemic undermining of the role of regulators including the Office of the Ombudsman is a sad reality that confirms the arrogance that usually creeps into an administration that believes that electoral success gives it the right to discard all principles of good governance in a real democracy.
The Ombudsman Office officials must be commended for speaking openly about the abuse of authority by government entities who chose to disregard the recommendations of the Office.
Parliamentarians must rectify this situation. Malta’s reputation of low standards of governance in various sectors is damaging the prospects of sustainable investment in the country. It also undermines the faith of ordinary people in the principles of fairness and equity and the pursuit of the common good by their political leaders. This situation needs to change if the country is to recover its credentials as a democracy committed to open government and the respect of ordinary citizens’ rights.
In the context of the constitutional reforms that are being planned, the role the Ombudsman Office must be revisited by making its recommendations enforceable within a reasonable time. The practice of just paying lip service to open government continues to erode the authority of regulators whose mission is to safeguard ordinary people’s lives.
The officials of the Ombudsman Office have proven to have the courage to speak out in no ambiguous terms when instances of public maladministration threaten the wellbeing of ordinary people. The office’s privileged contact with citizens as well as its expertise in the functioning of public administration puts it in a unique position to promote the principles of open government in its own functioning and in that of the public administration as a whole.
The empowerment of the Ombudsman Office is a guarantee for a genuine open government democracy.