Fresh call for applications welcomed by women's organisationsWomen lawyers, judges and magistrates will this week be urged to apply for a top post in the European Court of Human Rights after the government finally gave up on its crusade to have a trio of men as its nominees.
Since 2006, the government has been trying to persuade the European selection committee to choose one of the three male judges who sit on the Maltese Constitutional Court, and are the most "experienced" and "qualified".
But the ECHR insisted that one of the three people nominated by the country has to be a woman - for gender equality's sake.
When the original call for applications was issued, the government argued that the three most qualified people for the job were men, so these were nominated.
Two women lawyers had applied but they did not have the wealth of experience of Chief Justice Vincent DeGaetano, Mr Justice Joseph Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph Filletti.
In June, Malta almost managed to get its way by persuading most of the members of the Committee of Human Rights and Legal Affairs of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly that it was right.
However, this was still not enough because the government needed the backing of the absolute majority of the committee members, whereas it only had half of those present. Since about half the members failed to show up for the meeting Malta's bid could not succeed.
Now the government has given up and decided to issue a fresh call for applications this week.
"We still feel we were right with our initial list of nominees, but it wasn't accepted. We need to move on and this is why we're issuing a new call. Let's hope this time we'll be in a position to nominate the best man and woman for the job," Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici told The Sunday Times.
The advert to be published will be exactly the same as the original one, except for one line that was added: "Out of the three candidates to be chosen by the ministry, at least one will be a female and one a male."
Anna Borg, who heads the National Confederation of Women's Organisations, welcomed this decision, something her organisation had been pushing for since the saga began three years ago.
She had been very critical of the government's insistence not to include a woman, but yesterday said this compromise was "fair enough".
She pointed out that in the last European elections it was clear that incumbency had a huge effect on who got appointed to certain posts, and therefore "temporary positive action" was essential for women until the situation was "normalised". She was convinced there were a number of very qualified women who would apply for the job.
Labour MP Helena Dalli, who had also commented on the matter, reiterated her position that the government should ensure there were enough women in the sector, to avoid instances such as these.
She added, however, that many women found it hard to go for a job like this because it involved working abroad until retirement age.
"Many women in traditional Malta have too many ties. For instance, most of them would have professional husbands who would be unable to leave the country with them.
"Unfortunately it's usually more expected for a woman to change country because of her husband's job rather than the other way round," she said.
The judge who will finally be appointed to the post within the ECHR would succeed Judge Giovanni Bonello, who retired at 70.
cperegin@timesofmalta.com