Ombudsman pushes bill to fix Malta’s embarrassing EU status - EUROPE SAYS
Ritratt:Malta remains one of the final holdouts in the European Union without an accredited National Human Rights Institution. The Parliamentary Ombudsman is aggressively pushing a new Bill to expand his. . .
Ritratt:Malta remains one of the final holdouts in the European Union without an accredited National Human Rights Institution. The Parliamentary Ombudsman is aggressively pushing a new Bill to expand his office’s powers, warning that unchecked state-sponsored technologies like AI could lead to unprecedented rights violations. Malta finds itself in an embarrassing minority within the European Union. Alongside only Italy and the Czech Republic, Malta lacks an accredited National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) that complies with the United Nations’ Paris Principles. These international benchmarks dictate that a country must maintain a fully independent body tasked with promoting, protecting, and monitoring fundamental human rights and freedoms. To bridge this ‘human rights void’, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Judge Joseph Zammit McKeon, has heavily championed a comprehensive new Ombudsman Bill. The draft legislation was handed to Prime Minister Robert Abela for Cabinet consideration, but after total silence from the government, the Ombudsman took the unprecedented step of publishing it directly to the public. What the New Ombudsman Bill DemandsInstead of spending taxpayer funds creating a completely separate government commission from scratch, the Ombudsman’s proposal offers a resource-efficient alternative of widening the existing, strictly independent framework of the Ombudsman’s office. The landmark Bill targets several core areas:The Office would expand its current focus on basic administrative errors to actively raise awareness, educate, advise on national legislation, and report on the state of human rights across Malta. It also seeks to embed stronger constitutional protection, explicitly declaring that the Ombudsman cannot be directed or influenced by any politician or authority. Lastly, it calls for stronger legal authority to follow up on recommendations made to public authorities, ensuring they cannot be easily ignored or shelved. The Ombudsman’s report emphasizes that expanding human rights protections has become urgent due to rapid technological shifts. With the Maltese government investing heavily in digital transformations, the Ombudsman warns that a lack of human oversight poses a threat to everyday citizens. “New technologies require rigorous human oversight, because if not managed with care, they can introduce new forms of bias and breach the basic rights of persons,” the report warns. The Ombudsman emphasizes that tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) must “reinforce, not replace, personal accountability” within public services. Despite international backing, including explicit endorsements from the Civil Liberties Union for Europe and the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI), the Maltese government has dragged its feet. To date, the Government has not provided any official feedback or reaction to the Ombudsman Bill presented to it. The government has failed to issue a White Paper for public consultation or table any alternative human rights bill before Parliament. The report also notes the continued failure to fully incorporate Protocol No. 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights into Maltese domestic law. Even though Malta ratified this anti-discrimination protocol years ago, its exclusion from local law prevents citizens from seeking justice for state discrimination within local courts, forcing them to take the expensive route directly to Strasbourg. While Prime Minister Robert Abela stated in Parliament that the government intends to set up a separate, “independent authority focused exclusively on the protection of human rights,” no concrete draft legislation or public consultations have ever materialized. As the Ombudsman notes, the observance of human rights comes from a caring society. – “if we stop caring, then there is a real risk”.