95% of Maltese find it personally important or essential to them that the same laws and rules apply equally to every person, including all public authorities, irrespective of their personal circumstances, social status, wealth, political connections or origin – 2% above the EU average.
The finding comes from an EU-wide survey released this week as the Euroepan Commission set out a raft of “concrete initiatives” promoting, preventing and responding to rule of law issues.
Another 95% of Maltese said that those who make and apply laws should do so exclusively in the public interest – 4% above the EU average.
The same amount of Maltese respondents as the EU average (89%) believe that there should be independent controls to ensure that laws can be challenged and tested.
When asked whether certain aspects of the country needed to be improved, Maltese respondents said that there was a need for improvement in the law treating individuals equally (92%); improvements were needed to make sure those who make and apply laws do so exclusively in the public interest (92%); and in independent controls to ensure that laws can be challenged and tested (90%).
The EU averages for the aforementioned stood at 86%, 86%, and 82% respectively.
With regards to corruption, 96% said that it was essential or important to them that corruption involving public officials and politicians is properly investigated and those responsible are brought to justice – 2% higher than the EU average.
97% said that it was important that public officials and politicians do not use their positions to obtain benefits for themselves or their family members but take decisions in the public interest – 5% higher than the EU average.
This, again, translated into people saying that there was a need for improvement in both those areas, with 93% agreeing with the sentiments.
Respondents were also asked about the effectivity of judicial protection by independent courts, and people overwhelmingly agreed that this was personally important for them in every category, whilst also overwhelmingly saying that there was need for improvement in every aspect of the courts, slightly more than the EU average.
When it came to the Media and Civil Society, Maltese respondents showed marginally larger differences in how they view the situation, where, whilst there was a general and overwhelming agreement that many aspects of both the media and civil society were important, Maltese respondents saw a larger need for improvement than their EU counterpart when it came to issues of the Media and journalists criticizing the government or major economic interests without risk of intimidation (93% and 77%).
This was also reflected in the other categories where Maltese respondents said that there was a need for improvement in the allowance of civil society organisations and activists to operate freely, and an improvement in the rage of media allowing for sufficient information and the expression of different opinions, at 15% and 17% respectively when compared to their EU counterparts.
