Another European nation’s new whistleblower law is drawing heavy criticism for not adequately protecting whistleblowers. Pieter Omtzigt, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s General Rapporteur on the protection of whistleblowers, stated that Malta’s whistleblower reform law is “not fit for purpose,” according to MaltaToday.
December 17, 2021 was the deadline for European Union member nations to pass legislation in line with the EU Directive on whistleblower protections. Amendments to Malta’s pre-existing whistleblower law were introduced in November.
“Last Friday’s deadline for the transposition of the EU Directive on improving whistleblower protection would have been a great opportunity to improve the legal protections for whistleblowers in Malta, in line with the recommendations of the Council of Europe and the EU Directive,” says Omtzigt. “Since the brutal murder of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, everyone knows how important such protections are for Malta.”
Omtzigt outlines a number of issues with Malta’s whistleblower reforms, including that the burden of proof lies disproportionately on the whistleblowers and that newly created private and public sector whistleblower units are not adequately guaranteed to be independent and free of conflicts of interest.
Omtzigt’s negative appraisal of the burden of proof requirement stems from the fact that “protection is denied whenever a negative action is ‘justifiable for administrative or...
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