EU Whistleblowing Directive – Malta

✅ Whistleblowers protection already in place

The Whistleblowers Act was put in place in September 2013, and provided a protection framework for people reporting wrongdoing in the workplace.

Under this law, an Internal Whistleblowing Officer was appointed to receive reports for the public sector, and private Organisations with more than 50 employees were to establish internal reporting channels.

‍

📖 Current implementation status

The new law has been passed on November 15th, 2021.

‍

🆕 New Requirements

• Terms and Status

The definition of “employee” has been extended to include shareholders, trainees (paid or unpaid), previous employees, persons in a pre-contactual relationship with the employer, persons belonging to the administrative, management, or supervisory body of the Organisation (included non executive members).

‍

• Scope of Reporting

Any Organisation with more than 50 employees have an obligation to set up internal reporting channels, and Organisation with less than 50 employees are strongly encouraged by the new law to introduce the same measures.

The scope of retaliatory actions against wich a whistleblower can request protection has been expanded to include for example refusal of training, cancelation of a licence or permit, psychiatric or medical referrals.

Protection in case of Public Disclosure has been added, allowing whistleblowers to choose to directly make a public disclosure if there is any risk of retaliation from external disclosure or if there is imminent danger to the public.

‍‍

• Protection of Confidentiality

Organisations now have an obligation of record keeping, to ensure that any personal data which is manifestly not relevant for the processing of a report will not be collected or, if accidentally collected, must be deleted without undue delay.