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Karl Schembri
Camilleri’s source of divergence from the minister seems to be, however, an acute interpretation of the law and her firm belief that the Commissioner for Children Act of 2003 should be immediately amended – a view rejected by the minister who believes it is too early to review laws that are less than 5 years old, having a whole backlog of other laws she is pushing to enact in Parliament
Three years into her appointment as the first official voice of Malta’s children, 52-year-old Sonia Camilleri has asked not to be reappointed, citing her office’s lack of autonomy and independence while fuelling much speculation about a possible fallout with Social Policy Minister Dolores Cristina.
Sources close to the minister dismiss outright any clash of personalities, although they admit Cristina is very worried that all the publicity brought about by Camilleri’s refusal to be reappointed may be triggering such suspicions in public perceptions and even scaring away valid potential successors for the job.
Camilleri herself clears the air on that account. “There is absolutely nothing personal with the minister behind my decision,” she told MaltaToday, as her comments given to the press last week about the lacking independence she faced could have hinted at the minister’s interference in her work.
In fact, the only time the minister clashed – if that is the right word – with the children’s commissioner, was when Camilleri took a stand against IVF in May 2005 during a parliamentary social affairs committee, when she also put across her view that natural methods of conception had higher success rates than IVF, triggering a call for her resignation from Dr Josie Muscat, who operates an IVF clinic.
At that time, the minister did not mince her words in a declaration that, of all things, spoke of the commissioner’s autonomy from government.
“The Commissioner is autonomous and spoke on her own personal behalf at the social affairs committee in Parliament,” Cristina had said. “She is not, in any way, a spokesperson for my ministry on the subject of IVF, or on any other matter.”
Cristina now refers to that incident as the only disagreement she ever had with Camilleri – a mother of four children and teacher by profession – and the disagreement was public knowledge.
“The only disagreement we had was the one that was public, about IVF, more than a year ago, when I felt she expressed herself insensitively,” Cristina said. “But so what? It was just a question of different opinions, not of fundamental principles, and definitely not of interference.”
The incident exposed Camilleri’s staunch conservative background – she went as far as telling the Parliamentary committee that she never used condoms with her husband as they practiced the Church’s natural family planning doctrine.
Herself one of the organisers of the Cana Movement’s marriage preparation courses for engaged couples, Camilleri had also said in an interview that there is “a clear shortage of parenting skills”, leading families to dump their children irresponsibly in institutes.
But conservatism aside, Camilleri was vociferous enough in her campaigning for children’s rights to make her office visible and relevant soon after its launch. From child abuse to junk food, from playing fields to children’s exploitation on television, Camilleri has taken a clear stand in defence of children – the largest vulnerable group in our society.
Camilleri’s source of divergence from the minister seems to be, however, an acute interpretation of the law and her firm belief that the Commissioner for Children Act of 2003 should be immediately amended – a view rejected by the minister who believes it is too early to review laws that are less than 5 years old, having a whole backlog of other laws she is pushing to enact in Parliament.
“I don’t wish to comment much more right now,” Camilleri said when contacted midweek, shortly after Labour leader Alfred Sant said that he would give the commissioner’s office the same powers given to the Ombudsman and beef up its resources. “Whatever I say is bound to be interpreted politically, yet the issues I’ve raised are very technical. All I will say is that the children’s commissioner should be unlike all the other commissions created in Malta. It’s a post created by the United Nations to defend human rights, and unless the authorities realise that, it will not function as it should. We need to amend the laws – that’s something I realised just a few months after I was appointed, when I met other children’s commissioners abroad. I soon realised we were not on the right track in that regard.”
Camilleri would not specify in what concrete ways her independence was impeded. She is known to have insisted to get physically out of the ministry and was given an office at the Centru Hidma Socjali in Santa Venera, although she still insisted on renting out a private property – a request turned down by the minister.
It sounds ironic now, but when I interviewed her on her first day of work as children’s commissioner back in January 2004 we met precisely in the social policy ministry in Valletta, which she now insisted to detach herself from.
The minister to appoint her back then was Lawrence Gonzi, who was still minister of social policy at the time.
Even then, Camilleri had made it a point to tell me her office was not answerable to the minister but to Parliament, although she must have realised along the way that her status was still wanting as she is now demanding amendments to the law that would place the office more or less at a par with the Ombudsman.
With Ms Camilleri’s appointment, Malta became the 20th country in the world to have a children’s commissioner, as required from all countries by the United Nations’ Convention for the Rights of the Child drawn up back in 1989.
Her experience working in a government secondary school with children coming from the most difficult of backgrounds kept her in contact with children and former students for years. She worked as a volunteer with young adults in orphanages and at Mount Carmel, as well as assisted refugees from Iraq and young student families from Nigeria and Bosnia.
“I will be looking at the national minimum curriculum, which is a very good curriculum,” Camilleri had told me, “but I have to see whether this is actually being implemented; whether it is really unleashing children’s creativity and reducing their stress. I’d like to see whether this is a sort of Vatican Council II, which after all these years still has parts of it that have never been implemented.”
Apart from teaching children at different primary and secondary schools in Malta, Camilleri set up and directed a kindergarten for a multi-racial expatriate community in South Korea in the eighties.
The feeling among social policy ministry pundits is that Camilleri has “soured things” on the eve of a new appointment, making it more difficult to find a new person willing to take over where she left, for a remuneration of Lm6,000 annually and a budget of Lm25,000. But they also laud her for giving her office such a high profile, which in itself also means that her successor, whoever it will be, will have to face up to the high expectations raised by Camilleri. In the meantime Camilleri remains technically in office until a replacement is found.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
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