Malta: the only place where lawyers are permitted to be involved in business

Read this important article by former European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello. He describes how Malta is the only place where lawyers are permitted to be involved in business without being required to surrender their warrant and without the threat of debarment.

This is particularly relevant now because one of the front-runners in the contest to become Opposition leader is a lawyer who is overly focussed on business deals and has been from the get-go: Adrian Delia.

Being involved in business, of course, does not mean simply owning shares in a company that does business. It means seeking out and pursuing business deals, negotiating business deals for yourself and your company, and chasing business opportunities. None of that is compatible with the profession of being a lawyer, of serving your clients as a lawyer and of litigation in the Courts of Justice.

And this being Malta, the reasons why will have to be painstakingly (and painfully) explained, only to be challenged by people who think that Malta is a special place of ethics and behaviour where it is necessary to reinvent the wheel “because we are different”.

No, we are not different. We are just pirates and we love it.

Giovanni Bonello