“I welcome the government’s efforts to combat domestic violence in Malta. The transposition into domestic law of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, currently debated in parliament, is a decisive step forward. However, more needs to be done to protect the human rights of women” said today Nils Muižnieks, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, at the end of his four-day visit to Malta.
The Commissioner trusts that the pending Gender-Based Violence and Domestic Violence Bill would set up the appropriate legal framework to tackle these issues. “The on-going efforts to establish a global strategy aimed at coordinating public services, including the police, is also a positive signal, since all domestic violence complaints need to be effectively investigated and all victims treated with proper attention” added Commissioner Muižnieks. Looking forward to a more developed and dissuasive case-law in this field, the Commissioner encouraged the Maltese authorities to provide on-going training to more law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges and to collect and analyse domestic violence data in a systematic manner.
