Foreign Minister’s daughter claims discrimination after being ‘denied promotion opportunity’

Foreign Affairs Minister George Vella’s daughter Elaine Scicluna, is claiming that she is being prejudiced against by HSBC who included a clause in a circular advertising a position saying that politically exposed persons, or their family members, cannot apply.

The situation revolves around a call for applications to the post of SCC Assistant Team Manager, and Mrs Scicluna is arguing that she was shortlisted for an identical post which was then put on hold due to restructuring of the department, and was later dropped making way for a newer application call.

Mrs Scicluna, through her lawyer Ian Spiteri Bailey, filed a request for a prohibitory injunction and requested that it be provisionally upheld until the final decision is made.

The injunction request says that she has been employed with the bank for 27 years as a senior insurance account servicing officer.

The injunction request states that she participated in an application process for the position of SCC Relationship Manager. She was shortlisted and passed through an interview. Prior to all this, she was verbally assured by the line manager that there was no problem with her filing an application and participating in this call, even though her father is a minister. She went for the interview on 11 August, and from the information she has, it went well.

On 30 August, she received an email saying that the RBWM SCC Team has been subject to review, which will require re-structuring of the current operating model. To this effect, any recruitment has been put on hold until things become clearer.

On 9 November 2016, a job opportunity notice was released for applications for the post of SCC Assistant Team Manager, “and from the key responsibilities it was evident that these were precisely for the same role that was previously called SCC Relationship Manager, which the applicant had applied, was shortlisted, and passed the interview for. This time, contrary to the previous job opportunity notice, a condition was added which read: ‘given the nature of role responsibilities, employees who are PEPs (including family members or close associates of PEPs) are not eligible to apply’.”

Mrs Scicluna applied anyway, but was declined due to her being a family member of a PEP.

The injunction request states that her rights were prejudiced, and the alleged restructuring was done just to change the rules to exclude Mrs Scicluna from the process.