Despite the fact that there have been some very serious questions posed as to whether former Home Affairs Minister Manuel Mallia used his ministerial discretion to grant his Romanian wife Maltese citizenship some three years before the couple had been married for the legally-established five-year period, the Home Affairs Ministry has brushed aside a number of questions tabled by this newspaper.
Just over a month ago, The Malta Independent columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia serendipitously discovered that while the couple had married back in July 2012, Dr Mallia’s wife had become a citizen of Malta just two years later, in 2014 – meaning that the legal requirement for a couple to have been married for five years before a foreign spouse can apply for Maltese citizenship had somehow been circumvented.
At the time that his wife was granted Maltese citizenship, Manuel Mallia was serving as the minister responsible for citizenship and as such wielded ministerial discretion to waive certain requirements, normally provided in sworn declarations, necessary for obtaining Maltese citizenship.
But despite the potential fallout from such a revelation, the current administration of the Home Affairs Ministry has chosen to practically ignore this newspaper’s pointed questions on the matter, merely replying to our queries to the effect that: “Mrs Mallia, who was already an EU citizen, acquired citizenship according to provisions of Maltese citizenship legislation.”
Such a vague answer to very specific questions can be explained by a potential cover-up for a former minster’s transgressions, and a possible exercise in damage limitation in what could be an embarrassing situation for the government.
Furthermore, sources well-familiar with the acquisition of Maltese citizenship have informed this newspaper that being an EU citizen by no means allows anyone to ‘jump the citizenship queue’ or to have the necessary five-years of marriage prerequisite reduced to a shorter time frame.
Moreover, there are several provisions in Maltese citizenship legislation under which an individual is granted citizenship and this newspaper’s request for information on exactly which provision had been applied in the case of the minister’s wife went completely ignored.
One would imagine there should be no problem with disclosing the particular provision that had been applied, unless that provision had something to do with ministerial discretion applied in favour of the minister’s own wife.
In fact, Maltese citizenship legislation allows for the possibility of ministerial discretion to be applied to individual cases. The Citizenship Regulations subsidiary legislation actually allows the minister at the time full discretion to waive any citizenship prerequisite.
The Citizenship Regulations lay out a number of official forms that an aspiring Maltese citizen needs to complete, but it also allows the minister the power to waive any of the questions on the relevant form.
The Citizenship Regulations, in actual fact, state: “… provided that the Minister may dispense with any information required in any of the said forms which is not essential for the purpose of ascertaining the applicant’s qualifications to be registered [as a citizen of Malta]”.
For example, in the case of a foreign national seeking to become a Maltese citizen on the basis of their marriage to a Maltese national, the applicant fills out a form stipulating basic personal details – such as name, place of birth, father’s name, and so on… The official form also requests the applicant to stipulate whether he/she is married to a citizen of Malta or is a widow/widower of a citizen of Malta.
It then requests applicants to specify whether they have been a) married for at least five years to a Maltese citizen and still living with their spouse; b) they are separated from their Maltese spouse but had lived together for five years after marriage; c) they had lived with their Maltese spouse for at least five years after marriage; or d) they had been living with their spouse at the time of his/her death for at least five years after their marriage.
Quite clearly, each and every circumstance demands a five-year marriage but the minister concerned has the authority to waive the thorny five-year question and, moreover, cannot be called to answer for his actions.
The Citizenship Act itself, in fact, exonerates the minister from providing any explanations for the grant or refusal of any citizenship. As the Act states: “The Minister shall not be required to assign any reason for the grant or refusal of any application under this Act and the decision of the Minister on any such application shall not be subject to appeal to or review in any court.”
It started with an unpaid hospital bill
Mrs Caruana Galizia began looking into the case after a newspaper report in late March revealed that the Health Department had become involved in a legal wrangle with the former minister’s wife, Romanian-born Elena Codruta Mallia née Cristian.
Sources close to the legal profession explained to this newspaper that the case has been ongoing for quite a while but was only brought to light recently.
The case involving Mrs Mallia – who allegedly failed to pay an outstanding bill of over €3,000 issued by Mater Dei Hospital – is expected to be heard on 18 June when the parties concerned will present their legal submissions.
This was decided after the lawyers of both parties concerned met in court last week before Magistrate Gabriella Vella. Lawyer Maria Cardona – who works for the former minister’s law firm – is appearing for Mrs Mallia. The plaintiff in this case is the chief government medical officer while Nadine Farrugia is the legal procurator. Josette Sultana is the plaintiff’s lawyer.
The case began when then Ms Cristian received care at the state hospital in December 2008 and when the Health Department sent her a bill of over €3,000, which she had allegedly refused to pay.
The following July, she was served a judicial letter demanding that she pays up. Three years later, the Health Department obtained a garnishee order which went out to all the banks, but just €2,221 had been found in her name at a local bank.
Mrs Mallia is contesting the withdrawal of funds after she presented a copy of her passport to claim that the person being called to pay the bill does not bear her name ‘Elena Codruta Cristian’. She is arguing that her bank account was wrongfully debited and stated she is not the client being called to pay the outstanding Mater Dei charges.
Mrs Caruana Galizia has suggested that the Health Department billed then Ms Cristian because she was an EU national resident in Malta who was not married to a Maltese citizen and who did not have a European Health Insurance Card, which would have entitled her to free treatment as the citizen of another EU member state.
Subsequent investigations carried out by Mrs Caruana Galizia unearthed the facts that Dr Mallia and Ms Cristian had been married in July 2012, and that earlier in 2014 she had still held an ID number ending in a ‘A’, denoting that she was a foreign (alien) resident.
But by 2014 she had already been made a citizen of Malta, as denoted by her new ID card number, which ends with xxxx14L – indicating that she is a Maltese citizen (‘L’ being the new ‘M’ denoting Maltese citizenship on ID cards since 2000), and ‘14’ for the year when she was made a citizen of Malta.