The Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption has found that Malta “implemented satisfactorily or dealt with in a satisfactory manner” four of the nine recommendations on parliament and the judiciary – two of the country’s most important institutions – that it had made six years ago.
In a 2019 evaluation, it had also warned that the criminal justice system was at risk of paralysis. Failing to proceed against top officials facing corruption allegations conveyed a feeling that they enjoyed total impunity for their actions, it had commented.
It took a political earthquake – not the kind Joseph Muscat had promised when he became Labour leader but the one that threw him out of Castille – to make the administration realise it simply had to do something.
Soon after he took over in January 2020, Prime Minister Robert Abela initiated a series of reforms aimed at addressing the situation. And progress has been registered in terms of prosecution of former top officials on corruption charges.
But GRECO expects more. It has given Malta until the end of March next year to report back on measures taken to implement the rest of the measures it had recommended.
The nine recommendations relate to members of parliament, members of the judiciary and prosecutors. Those deemed to have been implemented or dealt with in a satisfactory manner refer to judicial appointments, the role of prosecutors, a code of ethics and relevant training for prosecutors as well as rules for the recusal of prosecutors where impartiality could be an issue.
The five on which the government has work to do, because they have only been “partly implemented”, are: a review of MPs’ code of ethics; supervision and enforcement in relation to MPs’ financial interests, standards of ethics and conflicts of interest; the counselling of MPs on ethical issues, conflicts of interest and financial declaration obligations; the need to significantly strengthen the system of judicial accountability, mainly by having more disciplinary sanctions, and, finally, training and mentoring for members of the judiciary.
While acknowledging that action is being taken on the MPs’ code of ethics, GRECO observes that provisions regarding sanctions and effective enforcement in case of violations of that code remain elusive. The government is arguing that the mere finding, by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life, that an MP violated the rules constitutes “reputational damage” and, therefore, has a dissuasive effect. GRECO, however, begs to differ.
The poor treatment, over the last few weeks and months, received by the standards commissioner from none other than the speaker of parliament, the justice minister and the government whip, to mention just three, fully justify the scepticism of the anti-corruption experts.
Instead of siding with the standards commissioner in an effort to raise the bar of MPs behaviour, the prime minister either defends defaulters or fails to take action even in flagrant cases of abuse or serious allegations.
A cabinet minister was found to be lying by a magistrate and Abela did not even feel a public rebuke was in order. A dark shadow hangs over another minister who allegedly assisted criminals in a failed bank theft, which he strongly denies.
Such level of tolerance surely does not make for high ethical and moral standards in public life.
Abela may have achieved what he was after: the avoidance of chastisement by an international body like GRECO just months away from an election. But he is still far away from being able to claim that the institutions are working the way they should.
With the latest GRECO report in hand, Abela needs to redouble his efforts.