Laws against financial crime, including bribery and corruption, are notoriously difficult to enforce because of the tools available to criminals to cover their tracks. However, anyone displaying considerably more wealth than their explained income can justify must be the beneficiary of income they cannot justify. We mention by way of illustration the case of Alfred Degiorgio who stands accused of murder in the case of Daphne Caruana Galizia. He has been able to acquire cars and boats and to gamble at local casinos considerable amounts of cash, in spite of the fact that he has been officially unemployed for decades.
Our legislative framework is not equipped with measures that in the UK are described as “unexplained wealth orders”, a type of court order issued by a British court to compel a target to reveal the sources of their unexplained wealth. These were introduced by sections 1-2 of the Criminal Finances Act (2017) and are governed by sections 362A-362T of Part 8 of the Proceeds of Crime Act (2002). Persons who fail to account are liable to have assets seized after an enforcement authority, such as the National Crime Agency, makes a successful appeal to the High Court.
The power of unexplained wealth orders in fighting money laundering lies in their reverse onus principle. We understand that Malta’s government has considered adopting a similar provision in our legislation but then decided to discard it or postpone it indefinitely.
We have reason to believe this decision was taken by persons within the government and others close to it because they would not be able to reply appropriately to an unexplained wealth order. This belief is supported by reports that members of the Labour Parliamentary group are refusing to comply with demands by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life for further information about their assets and income than the minimum that is statutorily required in their periodical declarations.21