The Minister of Justice and Home Affairs, Carm Mifsud Bonnici, has moved the first reading of a Bill to amend various laws related to criminal matters.
Noteworthy among the 64 articles in the Bill is the strengthening of existing criminal law on the protection of minors and vulnerable persons. The Bill also proposes changes to other aspects of criminal law and procedure which, for fairness sake, merit a discussion in their own right. But there is no doubt that the Bill's landmark provisions concern the extended protection proposed to being afforded to minors and vulnerable persons.
Child exploitation will be further criminalised than it already is. It will now be a crime for a person to compel a minor to perform sexual activities with another person. It will not be possible to allow a minor to witness sexual abuse or sexual activities for sexual purposes.
Nor shall it be possible to exploit minors by forcing them to participate in sexually-explicit conduct or exhibition. Persons who attend a pornographic performance involving the participation of minors will be punished. The penalties inflicted by the criminal courts with regard to sexual offences are being increased to add more to the deterrent effect of the criminal law. Those persons who access indecent material involving minors through the internet, on their mobile phone or other communications technologies will have to face the brunt of the criminal law.
These amendments are thus tying up loose ends in the Criminal Code to ensure that sexual offenders, including paedophiles, do not go scot free and are kept at bay from their innocent victims, our children.
Another new crime that will be established is that concerning the use of the internet to entice a minor to meet with an adult for the purpose of child prostitution or participation in pornographic exhibitions or participation in sexual activities with minors. The advertisement of sexual tourism will also be prohibited by the Bill.
Interestingly enough, the Bill does not propose a publicly-accessible sexual offenders register although the minister said draft legislation on the subject would be debated soon. Currently, the Criminal Code states that a criminal court may order a sexual offender to be temporarily or permanently prevented from exercising activities related to the supervision of children.
The Bill is proposing that such a court order should not remain in the judgment but is also registered in the criminal record of the offender. Perhaps this amendment is being proposed to avoid persecution of sexual offenders should their identity be divulged on a freely accessible public register. However, should not such right be counterbalanced with the parents' right to know who the sexual offenders are, at least to ensure that children are kept away from, and not brought in direct contact with, convicted sexual offenders and paedophiles? Should not the scales of justice tilt in such a case in favour of innocent young victims of sexual abuse rather than in favour of convicted sexual offenders?
The Bill proposes that punishment for sexual offences should be increased when committed on vulnerable persons. Vulnerable persons are defined, among others, as those considered by the court to be particularly at risk. This definition leaves it up to the court to decide who satisfies this criterion. Is it not more useful to a court if the legislator were to define with precision those cases falling under this category to ensure that justice is dispensed in a coherent manner?