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Description
The project has the overall objective of improving access to justice for persons wishing to strengthen their human rights protection. Our work exposes us to several human rights challenges faced by various groups of persons, primarily being vulnerable or marginalised groups such as LGBTIQ+ community, migrants/refugees/the elderly, children, persons with disabilities, persons at risk of poverty and women involved in prostitution. Whilst Malta has a relatively strong human rights regime that seeks to protect a long list of fundamental human rights, the practical protection offered to persons whose rights have been violated or might be violated is rather weak.
In several of our earlier projects, alone and also with several other NGO colleagues, we identified institutional obstacles to effective to justice for human rights protection. Examples include: difficulty accessing legal aid services, quality of legal aid services, capacity of administrative tribunals to cope with caseload, lack of expertise of some tribunals in relevant matters, lack of enforcement mechanisms and lack of protection of victims.
This project will initially conduct a prioritisation exercise with key stakeholders in order to ensure we target the most pressing and relevant obstacles. On the basis of this consultation exercise, our advocacy initiatives will target those entities/persons having a direct or indirect influence of the relevant legislation and/or policies. Together with targeted advocacy activities, we will also organise a public conference where our recommendations will be presented to a wider audience, in order to gather further support and understanding of the issues vulnerable/marginalised groups face when seeking to access justice for human rights protection.
Summary of project results
The objective of the project was to improve access to justice where fundamental human rights issues arise with a particular emphasis on vulnerable and marginalised groups. Its aim was to identify, prioritise and tackle those institutional obstacles that stand between an individual and their enjoyment of fundamental rights within the justice system.
The core of the project was a series of advocacy initiatives that were carried out to map key concerns, identify areas of improvement, target key actors of change and engage with them to bring about the necessary legal, policy or practice reforms. A series of meetings were held with stakeholders including Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and government advisors in Malta and MEPs, representatives of government agencies providing services to vulnerable groups and representatives of monitoring bodies such as the PACE Monitoring Committee to discuss specific issues relating to problems with legislation in the field of equality, rule of law and fundamental rights. A number of articles were published that highlighted key rule of law issues faced in Malta and an online final event was held to present the findings of the project.
A formulised list of SMART recommendations to improve access to justice for vulnerable and marginalised groups was published and disseminated to to key stakeholders including the Ministry for Justice, the Office of the Ombudsman, the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality, the European Commission Representation in Malta, academia and various key CSOs in Malta. The recommendations were categorised under the following headings: Equality Legislation, Independence of the Judiciary, Independence of Specialised Tribunals, Strengthening Protection for All, Governance and Transparency, Corruption and Financial Crime, Legal Aid and International Instruments.