Unexplained wealth orders to be considered only as ‘second step’ in new law

Justice minister Edward Zammit Lewis has said that introducing an unexplained wealth order in a new Proceeds of Crime law, will be a “second step” taken after assessing the effectiveness of the new law.

The proposed law, while enjoying the support of the PN, has been criticised for not including UWOs that make it harder for people with known criminal ties, to retain unexplained wealth as long as they live.

Nationalist MP Claudio Grech said UWOs are essential if Malta is to achieve a quantum leap in the fight against corruption. “We cannot miss this window of opportunity to do what’s right and strengthen the arm of our financial crime agencies and empower them with strong instruments to be effective and not spend their efforts in vain.”

In a committee hearing in the House on the Proceeds of Crime Bill, Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi added that UWOs were essential in the fight against hard-core criminals who are officially unemployed and with substantial assets in their possession.

Zammit Lewis, who is leading the bill, said Malta’s tax and social security laws already provided clauses on unexplained wealth. But he admitted the the law was only as good as the institutions tasked to enforce it. “We do not have a good history on the confiscation of assets, with the data showing that assets confiscate by the courts actually being used. So we’re seeing UWOs as a second step on this law.”

The Proceeds of Crime Bill contains provisions for the confiscation of assets suspected of having been procured through criminal methods, without the need of a conviction.

But the three cases in which this will be possible does not include any moment in which the owner of the assets is actually alive or inside Malta: according to the Bill, non-conviction confiscation will only be possible when a perpetrator absconds or is not in Malta; or when they die, whether during or without criminal proceedings hanging over them.

That means that, unlike the UWOs used by Ireland for example, the police cannot seize assets which upon ‘belief evidence’ they suspect are proceeds of crime and for which their owner must account for how they were obtained.