Malta partially implemented recommendations made previously by a Council of Europe anti-racism commission, the body said on Tuesday.
The commission had advised Malta to keep data to track hate crimes and create a permanent residence plan for irregular migrants.
In an update published on Tuesday, the commission said that Malta’s government had fully implemented the hate crime proposal but failed to implement the permanent residence plan suggestion.
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) had suggested that Malta should collect data on hate crime incidents including the motivation for the crime and the criminal justice system’s response.
It also “strongly” suggested that authorities continue allowing migrants who cannot be returned to their country of origin to be allowed to stay in Malta legally. The ECRI also urged the Maltese government to consider a more permanent form of regularisation for people who have stayed in Malta for more than ten years.
Hate crime unit receives 249 reports
In its responses to the first recommendation, on August 17, 2020, the Maltese government had stated that the police force keeps track of the number of hate crimes “in general”.
Local authorities had further argued that the “numbers are considered small enough to allow the manual extraction of relevant data” if necessary, with the promise of increasing data processing capabilities if the number of crimes increased enough to call for it.
The ECRI also noted that Malta set up the hate crime and speech unit in October 2019, also known as the Victim Support Agency.
The agency, which as of January had received 249 reports and filed 193 of them, provides free therapeutic and legal services while also compiling statistics which are available to the public on request.
In light of the setting up of this unit and the police force’s tracking of hate crimes, the ECRI considered the recommendation “fully implemented”.
‘No plan of permanent residence for irregular migrants’
The ECRI’s second recommendation was not implemented, according to the report.
The report acknowledged Malta's difficulties as a frontline state in terms of migration as well as its size limitations and complications related to housing migrants, but nonetheless pointed out the lack of a permanent residence plan for long-term stays and people who could not go back to their country of origin.
In its responses to the recommendation, the Maltese government had stated that migrants who could not go back to their country of origin are granted temporary residence permits subject to renewal.
The ECRI pointed out that “such irregular migrants will not be given permanent residency” while referring to the government’s 2018 policy to issue specific residence authorisation (SRA).
The SRA, which affected ‘non-returnable’ migrants who entered Malta before December 2015 and resided in Malta for five years, granted its recipients residency for two years, a work permit, travel documents and access to welfare and other benefits.
The ECRI stated that due to the technicalities outlined above, “it has not been possible to submit any new applications since the end of 2020”.
“Moreover, the ECRI notes that there are no plans to introduce a more permanent form of regularisation for persons who cannot be returned to their countries of origin, despite having resided for many years in Malta,” the report stated.