Another good observation
Posted by Nighthawk:
Manuel Mallia’s attempts at manipulating the Attorney General’s half-hearted answer on the constitutionality or otherwise of revoking citizenship is a further example of which part of the cutlery drawer you should find him in.
If you’re legitimate and you’ve got close to a million euros to splash about on citizenship, commissions and sundry ancillary fees, you’re welcomed everywhere. You don’t need to buy a passport. And you certainly don’t need to do it in secret.
That means that all the sales of Maltese passports are going to be sales to people of dubious moral character, that the due diligence was not done properly or at all, and that the purchasers did not disclose information which would disqualify them from citizenship. You don’t need to break any laws or constitutional provisions to withdraw citizenship granted in this manner.
The doubt is whether or not Henley will be able to claim innocence through ignorance resulting from incompetence or whether there will also be grounds for THEIR prosecution.
I’ll bet the law doesn’t even contemplate sanctions for the concessionaire for not carrying out a proper due diligence exercise or actively aiding and abetting a fraudulent and unqualified applicant.
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Wilful complicity in fraudulent activity should entail prosecution. In this respect I share the view of Nighthawk that, in the case of a person obtaining citizenship fraudulently or who does not have the necessary requirements, the State can revoke it, since such a person should never have acquired citizenship.
You’re a Manuel Mallia in the making, young David.
I hope your dream comes true.
My nightmare, young fellow.
I think that it is time that we put the sale of passports on the same level with the “Partnership,” the repeater class, the CET and numerous other policies of the Malta Labour Party. So much for change.
Lawyers, accountants, investment companies, banks and all professionals working in the financial services field are required, under pain of imprisonment, to carry out rigorous client-screening procedures in terms of the due diligence legislation and is subject to rigorous controls by the FIAU.
Will Henley and Partners be subject to the FIAU? Will it be following the rigorous procedures established by law?
There is a most glaring inconsistency between what the law (so far) provides in screening the citizenship applications and what mere morals (such as lawyers) should do in case of “grey lists” and suspect transactions.
Citizenship Scheme Bill says that should there be an application which, according to the concessionaire, does not clearly fulfil the due diligence requirements, the concessionaire shall refer the application to the Minister who shall have the power to determine the application.
However, really and truly, the Minister should have no power because either a client satisfies the due diligence requirements or he (she or they) doesn’t. Hence, why should the Minister have any discretion?
Doesn’t this give a wide potential for abuse and corruption?
This is blatantly wrong. The Minister should have no say whatsoever. Modern democracies move away from centralisation of power – decentralisation is the order of the day. In Malta, on the other hand, centralisation is, once again, taking over.
Correction (fourth line second paragraph of my post above): At the meeting held with professionals and practitioners on the 17th October, 2013, it was said that should there be an application which, according to the concessionaire, does not clearly fulfil the due diligence requirements, the concessionaire shall refer the application to the Minister who shall have the power to determine the application.
I find it hard to understand why the Homeland Security Minister has to take it upon himself to decide whether a person should be a Maltese citizen or not. The Minister will have to assume political responsibility for these persons for any misdeed they can do.
Frogs are lucky creatures, they get to eat what bugs them.
Furthermore, once Maltese citizenship is being sold at a price that is much lower than its real value and also much lower than what similar schemes cost, I’d say there’s plenty of leeway for tidy sums of money to change hands under the table whenever the applicant thinks that wheels need to be greased.
Does this government really know what it’s doing?
In August 2010 Montenegro announced that it would sell economic citizenships, but three months later the program was suspended indefinitely.
The program was rumored to have been placed on hold due to pressure from the European Union.
http://internationalliving.com/2012/03/three-places-you-can-buy-a-second-passport/
Of course this government’s bosses really knows what they are doing. That is why they are doing it.
The tragedy is that so many shafted shifters had not anticipated it and that the blinkered followers of the new movement will not realise its full implications until it hits them also between the eyes.
And the remedy may be all of five years along the line.
Of course this government’s bosses really know what they are doing. That is why they are doing it.
The tragedy is that so many shafted shifters had not anticipated it and that the traditional blinkered followers of the “new movement” will not realise its full implications until it hits them also between the eyes.
And the remedy may be all of five years along the line
Do they really believe that this is the way to eradicate poverty? Eradicate poverty by giving Maltese citizenship to scoundrels, terrorists – the list is endless.
All of us, present Maltese citizens have right to know who the new citizens are. Don’t they want to know?
Exactly. If you are in that kind of money and your credentials are impeccable you should be able to stride the globe with a passport issued in Tonga or Burkina Faso.
If you are prepared to pay one million euros for a phoney and highly suspect false Maltese passport then you must be in deep shit.
It would be interesting to know the opinion of the Police Commissioner and the Head of the Malta Security Services about this delicate issue.
Before it was really difficult to obtain a simple residential permit and now it has come so easy to become a Maltese citizen as a person only requires the green light by Manuel Mallia an ex criminal lawyer.
The “Sale of Maltese Passport and Citizenship” scam being introduced by the Labour Party is not only weak on due diligence, but on verification (audit) and public accountability.
There are some elements which make it extremely prone to fraud.
1. The identity of buyers of Maltese passports will not be made public.
2. Passport buyers are not required to live or have an address in Malta.
3. Passports will be sold to individuals and, if they choose so, to members of their family.
4. The prices of passports varies, and it does so very significantly. The principal applicant pays euro 650,000. Additional family members can pay euro 25,000.
Therefore, unless detail is available, the government can hide a lot of information, including:
– By publishing total figures for amounts collected, it can be very difficult to quantify the exact number of passports issued. This issue becomes more significant on a cumulative basis after some years.
– By publishing the same total figures, the government can hide sums derived from other sources, and fictitious passports can be issued if need be to cover those sources.
If the government wants to attract the world’s best talent to our country, as Muscat said, then they should be publicising the names and identities of those they do attract, so as to pull in even more. But instead we have secrecy.
The Minister of the Interior said he will confirm the due diligence on applicants, but Mallia’s credibility is at an all-time low with his eight-month record on dealings with the Police, Army, broadcasting and basic human rights.
My other concern relates to the total absence of a requirement to invest in Malta or even to live here when buying citizenship.
All told, the scheme appears to be targeted at satisfying the demands of individuals of dubious background, who may have struck pre election deals with the PL.