Malta's Constitution will have to be amended if a Bill intended to provide a legal basis to appoint persons of trust is to achieve its aim, the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has said.

In a statement on Tuesday, George Hyzler said that unless that happened, the Bill could lead to the government hiring even more persons of trust, with them no longer falling under the scrutiny of the commissioner's office. 

This would be detrimental to standards in Maltese public administration, Hyzler said.

Hyzler noted that the Constitution in its current form does not provide for appointments on trust.

As a result, many persons of trust may cease to be subject to scrutiny by the commissioner and it can potentially lead to a considerable increase in the number of persons of trust employed by the government.

This, the commissioner said, would be to the detriment of standards in Maltese public administration.

He was commenting in his report on a complaint filed by Matthew Caruana Galizia, director of the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, against Joseph Borg, who, in a Facebook post, defended Minister Michael Farrugia and directed an insult towards Arnold Cassola.

When he uploaded the post, Borg was a person of trust in the Ministry for Home Affairs. 

The commissioner upheld the complaint, met Borg in the presence of Farrugia and proposed that Borg should apologise. The case was closed once the apology was submitted.

In his case report, the commissioner observed that the Hate Crime and Speech Unit is part of the permanent machinery of government and should not be treated as an extension of the minister’s secretariat.

For this reason, the headship of the unit should not have been assigned to a person of trust. This was not a reflection on Borg but on administrative practices in government.