Victims of corruption should have the means to seek redress and hold the government to account when it fails to prevent large-scale corruption, the rule of law group NGO Repubblika said on Thursday.

It called for the creation of a system through which people and businesses could seek compensation when they were victims of corruption.

Reppubblika’s executive officer, Manuel Delia, explained that the NGO's recommendations have come as part of a global effort as the United Nations is in the process of updating its convention against corruption (UNCAC), to which Malta is a signatory.

The proposals seek state acknowledgment that corruption is not a victimless crime but represents a violation of fundamental human rights, he said.

“Our view is that in the same way a person has a right to access healthcare, citizens have a right to good governance and when the state fails to prevent large-scale corruption that affects the provision of essential services, it is a violation of human rights.

“In such circumstances, the state must be obligated to compensate the victims and give people a remedy to seek redress.” 

Repubblika has prepared a policy paper with three main proposals. They are that:

• There should be a system that consistently and effectively catches, prosecutes, condemns and corrects corruption and the people who carry it out according to internationally recognized norms;
• The state must find a way to reduce the risk of corruption by identifying vulnerable groups and lacking resources in anti-corruption bodies and address them effectively;
• The state must enact strategies that reduce the victimization of victims of corruption by strengthening services and aid to people who need it.

Delia said that while there was international precedent for victims of corruption to seek compensation, Malta did not allow individuals or groups to do so and Maltese law law seldom alloed such victims to participate in legal proceedings.

Locus standi - the right to bring action or appear in court - in cases of corruption remained a persistent issue, he continued, because victims must bring evidence of a direct link between corruption and collective damages in order to participate in local court action.

Delia said another remedy that went beyond changes to the legal system was to empower civil society groups to monitor and report on cases of corruption and its victims. This, he said, should be supported by public funding to function successfully.

Such groups would work to make sure that the police and other investigative bodies identified and included the victims of corruption in the early stages of investigation and kept them informed on proceedings.

Civil society should also be given resources to train legislative bodies and authorities on best practices to fight corruption and safeguard the public’s right to good governance.

“The point is not to govern but to work as part of the state to better the tools for fighting corruption,” Delia said.

Authorities should be quick to temporarily freeze assets they believe to be the proceeds of corruption and use that to fund aid and resources for victims. 

Repubblika is also recommending that the government set up a long-promised human rights authority that safeguards the people’s rights to good governance.

This, Delia said, did not necessarily mean setting up a new agency from the ground up, but could be achieved by empowering an existing independent body, such as the office of the Ombudsman, to fulfill this duty. 

These measures would ensure that victims of corruption are not reliant on the government’s goodwill to seek compensation, but an obligation on the state to make sure that the right to compensation when human rights had been violated was satisfied, he said.