Whistle-blower legislation amendments tabled by MEP Francis Zammit Dimech

Jeremy Micallef MEP Francis Zammit Dimech has tabled amendments for a legislative proposal regarding whistleblowing regulations which, if voted in, are expected to be implemented throughout all 28 member states in the European Union.

Earlier this year, Zammit Dimech was also entrusted by the EPP Group in the European Parliament to serve as the Group’s Rapporteur on legislation concerning whistleblowers, after the European Commission proposed a new law last April to strengthen whistleblower protection across the EU.

Protection of whistleblowers is fragmented across the EU. In a report on Media Freedom and Plu- ralism, Zammit Dimech outlined the fact that whistleblowers are crucial for investigative journalism. In this regard, he said that legalisation had to be strengthened because the Maltese government was boasting of a Whistleblower Act but, in reality, was only using this to protect and award tenders to whistleblowers who blow a whistle that pleases the government.

Various committees were involved in the process for this particular piece of legislation, but the principal committee is the Committee for Legal Affairs, of which Zammit Dimech is a member.

The amendments he tabled focus on the specific situations in which an individual may qualify for protection if he/she was reporting externally, or disclosing information on breaches that fall under the scope of this Directive.

They put importance on protection where the informant(s) would have reasonable grounds to believe that there would be retaliation for exposing the information.

Also, if internal and/or external channels are unreachable because of danger to the public interest, or in case of a risk of irreversible harm, the informant(s) have reason to believe that the offender and competent authority may conceal or destroy evidence; and that one acted in good faith and had reason to believe that the information they reported is correct – even if the judicial authorities did not recognise it as being a threat to the public interest.

This would be considered to be an innovative step for whistleblower laws as these amendments do not currently exist in the Maltese version of this legislation, and neither are they present in the EU version of the current Whistleblower Act.

The original text was submitted by French MEP Geoffrey Didier from the EPP group, rather than by Zammit Dimech himself. Didier was the speaker for the EPP group with regard to the report in this particular committee, so these amendments have the backing of the EPP group.

When approached for comment, Zammit Dimech insisted that “this is crucial for whistleblowing protection in general, and said it would be very important in the Malta context.

“Malta will eventually need to abide by such a standard of protection because we will need to transpose European Law across the Union.”

The proposed legislation seeks to establish safe channels for reporting, set new EU-wide standards for the protection of whistleblowers and develop mechanisms to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. The Committee that is responsible for media has been given until early October to prepare its position, after which the vote on passing the legislation will be taken the following month, ie November.