On 22 and 23 February 2024, CEPEJ experts visited in Malta the offices of the Attorney General and State Advocate in the framework of the joint CoE/EU project “Attorney General and State Advocate in Malta - Implementation of action plan on offices re-organisation” in order to assess their functioning. Following the 2018 Opinion of the Venice Commission in 2018 on constitutional provisions, the separation of powers and the independence of judicial and law enforcement bodies, the Maltese authorities decided in 2019 to create a new agency, the Office of the State Counsel, legally and operationally separate from the Office of the Attorney General.

CEPEJ experts have discussed with the Attorney General, the functioning of the office in regard to case flow, case management, time management and operating procedures, as well as its statistics and performance. The visit will result in developing an assessment with recommendations for improving the efficiency of the office based on CEPEJ tools.

Given the diversity of the State Advocate's tasks, the focus was given to the need to identify the various internal and operational procedures (mapping) in order to assess them. Later on, recommendations will be made for improving performance management and planning (statistical data collection, task prioritization and workload management, etc.).

This project is co-funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument and implemented by the Council of Europe, in cooperation with the European Commission.