Electronic tagging for people convicted of certain crimes will be introduced next year, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri has pledged. 

His promise comes two years after the government first presented a bill on the issue to parliament and months after a call for tender for electronic tags was issued. 

“This might be one of the big reforms to have ever happened in our country,” Camilleri told a news conference elaborating on budget pledges for his ministry. 

The so-called 'Electric Monitoring Bill' remains on its first reading in parliament after having to be reintroduced in October 2022.

It allows for the court to order electronic tagging for people sentenced to a prison term of not more than one year as well as in cases where a restraining order is imposed or when a court issues a temporary protection order in domestic violence cases. 

According to the bill, electronic tags can also be used on prisoners who are granted prison leave, and those allowed out on parole. 

However, the bill does not apply to those who are out on police bail for serious crimes, despite calls from legal professionals including Madam Justice Consuelo Scerri Herrera. 

Noting that then-PN MP Franco Debono had first raised the proposal back in 2012, the judge had noted that legislators had spent a decade discussing electronic tags but failed to implement them into law.

The issue returned to the spotlight in August when Jomic Calleja Maatouk fled Malta  with his wife while he was out on bail after appealing his conviction for importing explosives. The couple remain on the run. 

Camilleri said legislation regulating electronic tagging is set to be debated in parliament in the coming weeks, with the government expecting to implement the new law in 2024.

A call for tender to provide the service was issued in November 2022. 

Panic alarms 

The government will also be providing wearable panic alarms for victims of domestic violence, Camilleri said.  

“If someone presses the panic alarm, it would be as if they called 112, and emergency services would respond,” Camilleri said.  

The alarm would automatically give the person’s location to emergency services, the minister said.  

A domestic violence victim hub will also soon open in the south of Malta, and one would then follow in the north, the minister said.  

LESA will also be funding cameras in “strategic locations”, including St Julians, St Paul’s Bay, Marsa, and Paola, to deter crime and provide evidence should a crime occur, Camilleri said.  

The ministry is studying in which streets the cameras should be installed, he said.