Human rights documentation in Malta

Abstract

Elaborating on a number of Maltese human rights documents exhibited in Vienna on the occasion of an International Colloquy on Human Rights organized there by the Council of Europe, this paper seeks to bring out the special significance of these documents in the context of the promotion and protection of human rights in Malta. It ends up by focusing on the European Convention Act, 1987, which effectively incorporated the substantive provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and its First Protocol into Maltese law and made judgments of the European Court of Human Rights against Malta enforceable by the Maltese Constitutional Court in the same manner as if they were its own judgments. In highlighting the far-reaching effects of this important piece of legislation, the paper also dwells on some related problems.