The local ombudsman brigade often extolls the virtues of the Maltese ombudsman institution. Professing admiration for its work, the brigade laments the way the Office of the Ombudsman is treated disrespectfully by the government. Rewind to September 2002, when the country witnessed a sad spectacle of ombudsman-bashing that shook the institution to its very core. At the time, I was corporate affairs manager in the Office of the Ombudsman and witnessed events at close quarters. Twenty years later, it is fitting to revive those dark weeks. On July 31, 1995, the House of Representatives nominated Joseph Sammut as Malta’s first ombudsman. On November 15, 1995, the Ombudsman Act came fully into force and the Office of the Ombudsman started to receive its first complaints. The House approved Sammut’s reappointment for a second term on July 14, 2000. The first years were highly successful and the institution soon became one of Malta’s most trusted as thousands asked the ombudsman to address their grievances against public authorities. Virtually midway through his second term, however, the ombudsman felt that, although an officer of parliament, he was not receiving the backing of the...
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