Office of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life - Malta

Commissioner proposes publication of decisions not to investigate complaints

The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has written to Parliament’s Standards Committee asking for authorisation to publish decisions not to investigate complaints.

Currently, the Commissioner’s reports on his investigations are normally published. But if the Commissioner decides not to investigate a complaint, he cannot publish his decision to this effect. He can only send it to the complainant and the person who was the subject of the complaint. This is according to the practice established by the Committee in 2019.

In his letter to the Committee, the Commissioner referred to a complaint he had received alleging that the Hon. Alex Borg, Leader of the Opposition, had made a false statement about generic medicines. In December 2025 the Commissioner decided that this complaint did not warrant investigation. The media houses of the two main parties broadcast sharply different reports on this decision.

In his letter, the Commissioner stated that the media could broadcast such different interpretations of his decision because he did not have the power to publish the decision itself. He stated that it was time for the Committee to revise its procedures in the light of experience, and he proposed that he should be able to publish decisions not to investigate complaints.

The Commissioner pointed out that he had made the same proposal to the Committee in June 2023, December 2023 and September 2024, but the Committee had not come to a decision on the matter. He therefore requested a prompt decision from the Committee in the interests of transparency.

The Commissioner’s latest letter (in Maltese) is available fromhttps://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/2026-01-21-letter-to-speaker.pdf

Commissioner writes to Prime Minister regarding asset declarations by ministers

On 6 January 2026, the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life wrote to the Prime Minister regarding ministers’ declarations of assets for the year 2024.

This letter followed a request by the Commissioner to obtain copies of the declarations, since the longstanding practice of publishing ministerial asset declarations had ceased. In December 2025 the Cabinet Secretary stated in reply to this request that the Cabinet had decided that there should be a single declaration form for all members of Parliament including ministers, and ministers had declared their assets to the Speaker earlier that year.

The Commissioner understood the Cabinet Secretary’s letter to mean that ministers did not declare their assets for 2024 in the usual manner. They only did so using the declaration form for MPs, which is less detailed. The Commissioner also understood that in future ministers would continue to use this form only, and the ministerial declaration form had been eliminated.

The Commissioner wrote to the Prime Minister on 6 January to express his concern about these developments. He stated that, in effect, ministers would no longer declare their income, and neither would they declare financial investments and bank accounts held by their spouses. Such information was required by the ministerial declaration form, but not the form for MPs. This was a setback for transparency in public life, and it sent a very negative message.

The Commissioner stated that another setback for transparency had taken place because asset declarations by MPs were not published, so declarations by ministers would no longer be accessible to the public. The Commissioner noted that, a year earlier, the Prime Minister had proposed that declarations by MPs should be published within a timeframe to be set by law, but in his letter of December 2025 the Cabinet Secretary made no reference to this proposal.

The Commissioner also noted that ministers were obliged by their code of ethics to make an annual statement of their assets to the Cabinet Secretary on the relevant form. The elimination of this form meant that all ministers were in breach of their ethical obligations, even if no action could be taken against this breach since the Commissioner did not have the power to investigate Cabinet decisions.

In his letter of December 2025, the Cabinet Secretary also announced that the government intended to strengthen the code of ethics for MPs. He stated that this was to be done in the light of recommendations made by the first Standards Commissioner in 2020, as well as a decision by the current Commissioner concerning an MP who had made an untrue statement.

In his letter to the Prime Minister, the Commissioner reacted to this announcement by pointing out that the code of ethics for ministers also needed strengthening. The Commissioner stated that it was particularly important for ministers to be regulated by a solid ethical framework, given their powers and the resources they controlled. He pointed out that the report issued by the first Commissioner in 2020 dealt with both codes, as did also a report issued by the OECD in 2023.

The Commissioner noted that both reports also included recommendations to strengthen asset declarations. He stated that these recommendations should be addressed as part of any changes to the ethical framework, even though recent changes to the asset declaration system had been in a contrary direction.

The Commissioner’s letter to the Prime Minister is available from: https://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/letter-to-pm-2026-01-06-en.pdf.

Standards Commissioner issues annual report for 2024

The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has issued his annual report for the year 2024.

During 2024 the Commissioner received 19 complaints. The Commissioner investigated 17 complaints and decided that a further 13 complaints did not warrant investigation. The Commissioner thus closed a total of 30 complaints.

The number of pending complaints declined from 27 at the start of 2024 to 16 at the end of the year.

The Commissioner found a breach of ethics in four cases. He closed two of these cases himself after receiving an apology, and he referred the other two cases to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Standards in Public Life.

One of the cases referred by the Commissioner to the Standards Committee concerned the engagement of the same person as a consultant by two ministers in succession. The Commissioner found that this person performed secretarial rather than consultancy work. He found both ministers guilty of abuse of power and one of them guilty of favouritism. The Committee accepted the Commissioner’s conclusions in this case.

In the light of this case, the Commissioner believes that the law should be changed to make abuse of office by persons holding state office a criminal offence. The Commissioner believes that this offence should cover wilful neglect of duty and misconduct in office, and it should apply to persons in political as well as administrative roles.

The other case referred by the Commissioner to the Standards Committee concerned a promotional video featuring the Prime Minister. The Commissioner concluded that the use of public funds to produce and circulate the video was not justified. In this case, however, the Committee did not accept the Commissioner’s conclusions.

The annual report also notes that in September 2024, the Commissioner wrote to the Committee asking for the right to publish decisions not to investigate complaints. The Commissioner made this request because current practice as established by the Committee dictates that while reports on investigations can be published, decisions not to investigate complaints cannot be published. The Commissioner believes that the time has come for some of these decisions to be published in the interest of transparency.

This was the third such request by the Commissioner. He sent similar letters in June and December of 2023. However, this issue remains pending before the Committee.

The Commissioner’s annual report can be downloaded from https://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/annual-report-2024.pdf.

Commissioner recommends that the rules permitting government employees who are also MPs to attend to their parliamentary duties during working hours should be clarified – and enforced

https://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/commissioner-for-standards-case-report-k071.pdf

Reports on three investigations published

Parliament’s Standing Committee for Standards in Public Life has authorised the publication of three reports submitted to it by the Standards Commissioner.

Two of these reports concern official government advertisements that, the Commissioner found, served as publicity for individual ministers. One case concerns a video issued by Minister Clifton Grima, while the other case concerns a video issued by the Office of the Prime Minister and featuring the Prime Minister and various ministers and parliamentary secretaries.

These videos were treated as advertisements by the Commissioner because they were published on social media by means of sponsored posts, meaning that the government paid money so the videos would reach a wider audience. In his reports on these cases, the Commissioner reminded the Standards Committee about the need to adopt rules on government advertisements.

The third case concerns comments made by the MP Alex Borg about the Fort Chambray concession in Gozo. The Commissioner for Standards found that the Hon. Borg’s comments on the concession were not in keeping with the facts. In his report, the Commissioner noted that the code of ethics for MPs did not oblige them to tell the truth, but he still found that a breach of ethics had taken place because of the particular circumstances of this case.

In the Commissioner’s opinion, none of these cases were grave in nature. Cases that are not grave can be closed by the Commissioner himself on the basis of an apology. In all three cases, however, the person investigated did not apologise. This was why the Commissioner referred the cases to Parliament’s Standards Committee.

It is up to the Committee to authorise the publication of reports referred to it by the Commissioner.

The reports are accessible from:

https://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/commissioner-for-standards-case-report-k067.pdf

https://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/commissioner-for-standards-case-report-k069.pdf

https://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/commissioner-for-standards-case-report-k072.pdf

Commissioner for Standards participates in round table on how to strengthen ethical standards in parliaments

Strengthening ethics and integrity in parliaments As part of a project to enhance ethical standards within the Parliamentary Assembly and across parliaments in the member states, funded by Germany, the Committee on Rules of Procedure organised a round table at the House of Commons in London on 31 March, bringing together members of the committee...

Standards Commissioner writes to Prime Minister regarding asset declarations

On 30 January 2025, the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life wrote to the Prime Minister to present his views on the system of asset declarations that applies to ministers and members of Parliament.

The Commissioner’s letter followed correspondence that began after ministers’ declarations of assets for the year 2023 were not tabled in Parliament, thus breaking with long-established practice. The Commissioner wrote to the Prime Minister for the first time on 2 January 2025 to express his concern about this.

The Prime Minister replied proposing that all members of Parliament should make a single declaration of assets each year, even if they are ministers. This declaration would be tabled in Parliament. Ministers would no longer be required to make a separate declaration of assets. The Prime Minister asked for the Commissioner’s views on this proposal.

In his letter of 30 January the Commissioner stated that there should be no reduction in the information that ministers are obliged to declare. He noted that ministers are currently obliged to declare their income, although ordinary MPs are not. He said that the introduction of a common declaration form should not result in this requirement being dropped.

The Commissioner referred to an OECD report which recommended that asset declarations should include more information. Among other things, the OECD report proposed that MPs should declare their income, and ministers and MPs alike should declare gifts received by them (including paid travel abroad). The Commissioner stated that this report should be the point of departure for the reform of the asset declaration system.

The Commissioner also stated that the reform should involve consultation with the public and civil society, and it should not be rushed. He said that in the meantime he saw no reason why ministers’ declarations for 2023 should not be tabled in Parliament, and this should be done as soon as possible.

The Commissioner's letter is available fromhttps://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/letter-to-pm-2025-01-30-mt.pdf

Standards Commissioner insists on publication of decisions not to investigate complaints

The Commissioner for Standards has written to Parliament’s Standards Committee for the third time asking for authorisation to publish decisions not to investigate complaints.

Currently, when the Commissioner investigates a complaint his case report on the investigation is normally published. But if the Commissioner decides that a complaint does not warrant investigation, he cannot publish his decision to this effect. He can only send the decision to the complainant and the person who was the subject of the complaint.

The aim behind this practice, which was established by the Committee in 2019, was to avoid publicising an allegation if the Commissioner did not intend to investigate it.

In many cases, however, this consideration does not apply because the allegation is already in the public domain. For this reason the Commissioner wrote to the Committee on 15 June and 5 December 2023 asking for authorisation to publish decisions not to investigate complaints.

On 19 September 2024, the Commissioner wrote for the third time to restate his request and point out that it was still pending before the Committee after more than a year.

The Commissioner also said that his inability to publish decisions not to investigate complaints served only to allow others to publish selective, inaccurate or downright misleading accounts of those decisions, as happened recently in connection with complaint 179. Furthermore, unnecessary secrecy went against the principle of transparency and risked undermining public confidence in the way the Standards in Public Life Act was being put into effect.

The Commissioner therefore asked the Committee to decide on his request as soon as possible in the interests of good governance.

The Commissioner’s letter is available fromhttps://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/letter-to-speaker-2024-09-19.pdf

Standards Commissioner says asset declarations by MPs should include more detail

"MPs need to be more specific in their property declaration" - TVMnews.mt The Commissioner for Standards in Public life, Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Azzopardi, told TVMNEWS that Parliamentary Members should start being more specific in their declaration of assets, particularly when it comes to property.

The Commissioner for Standards in Public Life has issued his annual report for 2023. This is the first annual report to cover the activities of the current Commissioner, Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Azzopardi, who was appointed on 8 March 2023.

During 2023 the Commissioner received 27 complaints. He closed an identical number of complaints. He found that 20 of these complaints did not warrant investigation or further investigation. He investigated the remaining seven complaints by means of five investigations (some complaints dealt with the same matter, so they were covered by a single investigation).

Four of the five investigations undertaken by the Commissioner resulted in a finding that misconduct had taken place. Three of these cases were not serious in nature, so the Commissioner closed them himself after receiving apologies from the persons investigated. He referred the remaining case to Parliament’s Standards Committee in accordance with the Standards in Public Life Act.

The annual report also covers other activities, including the conclusion of an EU-funded project to improve the integrity and transparency framework in Malta. This project, which was carried out at the Commissioner’s request, resulted in the publication by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) of a 224-page report setting out recommendations to improve public integrity in Malta. This report is awaiting consideration by the government of Malta.

The Commissioner’s annual report for 2023 can be downloaded from https://standardscommissioner.mt/annual-reports/.

The official website of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life is moving from standardscommissioner.com to standardscommissioner.mt.

Reports on investigations by the Commissioner can be found at https://standardscommissioner.mt/case-reports/.

The Commissioner’s guidance note on persons of trust can be found at https://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/persons-of-trust-guidance-note-EN.pdf.

The Commissioner’s guidelines on government advertising and promotional material are available from https://standardscommissioner.mt/wp-content/uploads/guidelines-government-advertising-promotional-material.pdf.

Codes of ethics for MPs, ministers and persons of trust can be found at https://standardscommissioner.mt/resources/. Annual reports and other documents published by the Commissioner are also available from this page.

The website at the old location is being wound down gradually.