A Council of Europe watchdog reported on Tuesday that Malta still has to initiate an over-arching anti-corruption strategy, built on a risk assessment in respect of the government and its top executive officials.

The GRECO Group of States Against Corruption issued a detailed report assessing the measures taken by the Maltese authorities to implement recommendations issued in the Fifth Round Evaluation Report on Malta in March 2019.

It said the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has not been vested with any power to impose additional sanctions for violations discovered.

Transparency of the legislative process at the government level requires further improvement: some measures to facilitate public consultation through electronic access are underway, but they have not led to tangible progress so far.

"The accelerated adoption of constitutional amendments in July 2020 represents a more recent illustration of the need for greater transparency in the legislative process, including meaningful public consultations.

It said that further safeguards should be put in place to limit the number of appointments of “persons of trust” in the government to an absolute minimum, and these positions should be subject to the same integrity requirements and supervision.

"No measures have been taken to introduce ad hoc disclosure when conflicts of interest occur in respect of top executive officials and there are no procedures to manage such situations.

"In addition, regulation of lobbying and the disclosure of contacts between top executives and third parties is yet to be accomplished, and plans to establish an Integrity Unit to support public office-holders in solving ethical dilemmas have not materialised."

Important challenges remain in the investigations of some of the high-profile corruption cases.

"The lack of special investigation techniques for revealing corruption offences also remains a serious drawback," it says.

 As regards law enforcement authorities, the report notes that several important policy documents have been adopted, such as the Anti-Fraud and Corruption Policy, the Police Code of Ethics, the Police Force Transformation Strategy, the Horizontal Movement Policy and the Policy on Business Interests and Additional Occupations. The need for coordination of these policies and their implementation had been acknowledged by the law enforcement authorities as a priority. 

A new procedure for the appointment of the police commissioner had been introduced and the new commissioner, as well as his deputy, were appointed in accordance with this new procedure. In addition, new provisions regarding guidance on gifts have been reflected in the updated Anti-Fraud and Corruption Policy. It had also been made clear that breaches of the Code of Ethics may trigger sanctions commensurate to the gravity of such breaches, and the role of the newly introduced Integrity Officer has been specified, including as regards confidential counselling on ethics and integrity. 

Recent legislative amendments also introduced the Police Disciplinary Appeals Board, which took over the task of examining disciplinary appeals from the Independent Police Complaints Board. Police officers had also been enabled to report possible corruption offences anonymously.

"These are clearly positive steps. Nonetheless, additional measures must be taken to fully meet the demands of all the recommendations. Thus, greater coherence is needed among the rules on police ethics and integrity, which are still contained in several documents. Even though the Horizontal Movement Policy is said to contain provisions regarding filling of vacant posts, their application to transfers of police officers is yet to be asserted through practice, and promotions are not covered by this policy," the report says.

"The same holds true for the new rules on restriction of business interests and parallel activities of the police officers."

In addition, it was uncertain whether sufficient resources were provided to the Independent Police Complaints Board to clearly establish it as an efficient and independent complaints mechanism.

GRECO noted that police officers reporting possible corruption from within the Police Force are covered by the ad hoc protection mechanism in the Anti-Fraud and Corruption Policy. But it was regrettable that they do not benefit from the protection measures as set out in the Protection of Whistleblowers 

GRECO said that further progress was therefore necessary to demonstrate an acceptable level of compliance with its recommendations within the next 18 months.  

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