It would be “a mature political step which should be taken, and taken now”.
This is what ombudsman, Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Said Pullicino, said about the idea to entrench the institution of his office in the Constitution when he met Labour leader Alfred Sant a few weeks ago.
Just a day later, Justice and Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg said during a press conference that a constitutional amendment had been drafted and had been sent to the opposition for consideration.
It would seem that Dr Borg was taking the cue from what the former chief justice had put forward. But the entrenchment of the ombudsman in the Constitution has been on the cards for quite a while. And it now seems to be the right time to carry on with the job.
The office of the ombudsman was set up in Malta in 1995. The ombudsman acts as watchdog to guard the rights of citizens who feel they suffered an injustice in decisions. Its mission statement lays down, among other things, that the office acts “as an independent and impartial institution to investigate and resolve citizens’ grievances about government departments and public bodies within jurisdiction with fairness and in a timely and effective manner”.
The office was also set up to promote the right to good public administration and the right to complain against maladministration as fundamental rights of all Maltese citizens; to contribute towards an improvement in the quality of Maltese public administration; and to promote a positive attitude among the Maltese public service towards the award of equitable redress for justified complaints.
Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Said Pullicino is the second ombudsman Malta has had. In its first 10 years, the office of the ombudsman was run by Joseph Sammut, who had himself suggested the entrenchment of the office of the ombudsman in the Constitution way back in 2003.
The principle was approved at Cabinet level and the government wrote to the opposition to inform it about the constitutional amendment it was proposing. No reply has been forthcoming from the Malta Labour Party.
And yet, this is a matter that should not be of political controversy. Opposition representatives have already expressed themselves in favour of the idea. An official position will be taken after the matter is discussed at parliamentary group level. There may be other, more important, issues at stake for the Malta Labour Party, but it is believed that such a proposal should not be too difficult to approve.
It would be quite unfortunate if the MLP were to oppose the idea just for the sake of taking a different side to what the government is proposing. The office of the ombudsman should not be turned into a political football as, after all, it is there to safeguard the citizens’ rights and it would therefore be the citizens who would be hit most, if for some reason, the office was not functioning.
We have already had a minor example of this – when the post of ombudsman was vacant for a few months last year until there was an agreement on who would replace Mr Sammut as ombudsman. According to the report for 2005 that was recently published, fewer people made use of the “service” because of this transition.
As such, by not having a functioning ombudsman’s office, the citizens were deprived of an office set up to enable them to obtain redress in cases where an injustice was committed. This form of injustice would be permanent if, for some reason, no ombudsman were to be appointed in the future.
And this is why the institution of the ombudsman should be enshrined in the Constitution. Through such an entrenchment, the people would be ensured that the office will remain in full function whatever the circumstances and whoever is in government.