It is unbelievable that voluntary organisations, which do sterling work in several areas, alleviating the burden of government in socially oriented activities and supporting the weak and vulnerable, have become the target of rules that strangle them and norms that could win a prize for unnecessary and futile bureaucracy.
The Voluntary Organisations Regulations published last September need to be read to be believed.
The opening regulation is a problem in itself. It states that the definitions of terms in the subsidiary legislation prevail over the definitions in the Act of Parliament regulating voluntary organisations.
Any first-year law student would tell you that no subsidiary legislation can run counter to primary legislation, namely the parent act enabling government or any other entity to issue regulations.
Then, the regulations indulge in a tirade of norms intended to shackle voluntary organisations in Malta.
Collectors representing organisations have to seek a permit from the Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations, which would only be valid for three months. A tag is issued for every collector valid only for six months.
What is more preposterous is that these voluntary organisations can only collect money using special collection “tins” or containers issued and sealed by the commissioner’s office. Once the collection is over, these containers can only be opened in the presence of a notary or legal professional and in the presence of the commissioner’s agents.
The collectors have to fill in a form with details of the collection to be sent to the commissioner. Failure to return the container to the commissioner’s office entails a daily fine.
Can you imagine all the band clubs of Malta, which organise a weekly door-to-door collection, having to queue in front of the commissioner’s office to register the money collected?
These norms rest on the false presumption, and the false impression the government is giving, that those who arduously work in the voluntary sector are crooks.
The regulations indulge in a tirade of norms intended to shackle voluntary organisations in Malta- Tonio Borg
Id-Dar tal-Providenza, Caritas and Oasis personnel will have to wear a tag, renewable every six months, carry only collection tins issued by the commissioner’s office and the money collected has to be verified by such office, euro by euro, cent by cent.
By the way, even envelopes containing donations to NGOs have to be opened in front a legally qualified person, followed by a form to be filled and sent to the commissioner.
Collections in streets can only be carried out, in Emmaus fashion, by teams of two collectors, not more. To enter private or public premises, permission in writing is required. Entering a shop to collect for Id-Dar tal-Providenza, for instance, will require a written permission from each shop-owner visited.
The worst is still to come. Under the guise of regulating “collections”, the government has issued regulations which unbelievably prohibit any person from bequeathing a legacy to a non-registered voluntary organisation. Such testamentary dispositions would be null and void.
Perhaps one understands that only registered organisations may benefit from public funds. But to prohibit private funds from being channelled to any organisation simply because it is unregistered is, besides being preposterous, probably illegal and unconstitutional.
It is illegal and ultra vires because the enabling law only authorised regulation regarding collections and not testamentary dispositions. And it is unconstitutional because the last time the government tried to restrict the freedom of a person to regulate his own property after his death, in 1983, disallowing provisions in wills leaving money for the celebration of masses for the repose of one’s soul, the courts annulled such provision as discriminatory and in breach of the right to dispose of one’s private property.
At a time when revelations from the Panama and Passport papers reveal a network of intrigue, illegalities, money laundering and deception, with millions of euros being channelled in foreign “fiscal paradises” and “high investment” individuals acquiring Maltese passports by producing, among other things, receipts for cheese cakes bought at Rabat and alcoholic drinks at Paceville, is it not strange and surreal that the fury and brunt of the law is being directed against volunteers who dedicate their time, sometimes even their holidays, to assist the vulnerable and the needy in society?
One is reminded of that evangelical rebuke of taking the splinter out of someone else’s eye when all the time there is plank in one’s own.
Tonio Borg, former European Commissioner