The legislative development of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Malta : a chronological appraisal

Abstract

This paper provides a brief outline of the legislative development of first and second generation human rights and fundamental freedoms from the British period to post-independent Malta, with particular focus on the period 1953 to 2008. Human rights and fundamental freedoms as we know them today have been codified after WW H. Since then various declarations and conventions incorporating human rights and fundamental freedoms have come to the fore on an international, regional and national level. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 10 December 1948 and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 4 November 1950 - the first soft law and the second hard law immediately come to mind. Nevertheless, in so far as Malta is concerned, we can trace our human rights history back to the Declaration of Rights of the Inhabitants of the Islands of Malta and Gozo of 15 June 1802 - a declaration which is reminiscent of similar declarations proclaimed during the late eighteenth century such as the American Bill of Rights of 25 September 1789 and the French Declaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen of 26 August 1789 and, very much earlier, the English Magna Carta of 15 June 1215. What is of historical relevance of the 1802 Maltese Declaration is that it was drawn up by the Maltese themselves - it was our first autochthonous human rights instrument which was not granted to us by a foreign colonial power who ruled Malta over time as were subsequent instruments such as the human rights and fundamental freedoms provisions in the 1959 Maltese Constitution, the 1961 Blood Constitution and the current 1964 Constitution of Malta, all three Constitutions being handed down to the Maltese by the sovereign British colonial ruler.