Judge Lawrence Quintano has been appointed chairman of the Permanent Commission Against Corruption.

As announced by Times of Malta earlier this months, the other members of the commission, appointed for five years with effect from September 9, are retired Magistrate Joseph Apap Bologna, and lawyer Yana Micallef Stafrace.

The government said it appointed the commission following a detailed analysis of the several proposals made for the reform of the sector.

It said it believed that until the proposals were properly evaluated and all, or some of them, implemented, the commission should be set up according to law.

The previous commission stopped functioning in November when its term came to an end.

It was set up in the late 1980s with a broad brief to investigate complaints about public sector corruption but it never really made any headway.

Out of about 425 investigations, not a single case was brought to court.

There was an attempt, under the previous administration, to strengthen it with a special prosecutor investigator.

However, in its review of the justice system, a commission headed by former European Court of Human Rights Judge Giovanni Bonello, argued that it would be better to set up a prosecutor general with responsibility for investigating corruption.

Under such a plan, the commission would be disbanded.

The reform report was submitted less than a month after the term of the commission expired.