President encourages more debates over Ombudsman’s reflections and recommendations

President of Malta George Vella said yesterday that, although he is convinced that individual Members of Parliament take well into account the content of the Ombudsman’s annual report, it would be better if the House of Representatives debates the Ombudsman’s reflections and recommendations more regularly “as is required by the Ombudsman’s Act and as also suggested by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission.”

The President was speaking at an event held at San Anton Palace to launch the book Serving People and Parliament: The Ombudsman Institution in Malta, 1995-2020, edited by Prof Edward Warrington to mark the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Office of the Ombudsman. While pointing out that the development experience of the Ombudsman’s Office offers important lessons and precedents that could be helpful in shaping other constitutional changes, he identified three principles that stand out in particular: the principle of graduality; the principle of carefully thought-out checks and balances; and the principle of consensus on the mission and composition of each institution, in Parliament and beyond.

He said that the Ombudsman’s model succeeded and that the great trust it enjoyed among the people and Members of Parliament inspired other such institutional reforms, including the National Audit Office in 1997 and the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life in 2018.

The President observed that the 25th anniversary of the Office of the Ombudsman coincides with a time of constitutional renewal. “For the first time, after years of discussing the need for reform of our Constitution by the previous Presidents, I have held a wide-ranging public consultation on what constitutional reforms citizens want to see in our Constitution. This exercise is now closed and will serve as a basis for the discussions we are expected to have in the Constitutional Convention, which will start working when the pandemic allows us.” In the context of the consultations on the Constitution, he referred to the report issued last October by the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, which attaches great importance to the Office of the Ombudsman. More generally, he encouraged all those involved and interested to debate this report calmly and serenely in order to decide, as a nation, what more should be adopted from it, always within the parameters of political, legal, and constitutional circumstances.

Noting that official reports say that there are very few cases of disagreement between the Office of the Ombudsman and the entities subject to its jurisdiction, the President reiterated the call he recently made when visiting this Office: that the Ombudsman’s recommendations, when possible, should be accepted and implemented.