The law regulating voluntary organisations is expected to be tweaked to accommodate Church NGOs that have still not signed up with the Voluntary Organisations Commissioner.
Approved in 2007, the law sparks controversy every year because many organisations, including most of the ones that fall under the Church’s umbrella, never enrolled.
This has created legal problems every time they organised fund-raising activities or when the annual Christmas charity telethon l-Istrina came to distribute the funds collected.
The aim of the law is to ensure accountability and transparency in NGO operations. Legally, only the NGOs enrolled with the Commissioner can raise money without special permission and receive certain benefits from the state – including funds from an event like L-Istrina.
Last year, Church organisations were given a temporary “exemption”, which allowed them to hold their activities anyway, but this disappointed other NGOs which had worked to align themselves with the law and, therefore, saw this as discrimination.
In December, the Church said discussions with the government over enrolment were nearing conclusion.
Asked for an update this week, a Curia spokesman told The Times: “The discussions are not concluded yet, although substantial progress was made.”
Meanwhile, an Education Ministry spokesman said: “Discussions have been ongoing and the ministry is looking towards finalising them with a view to finding solutions to the current differences.”
The Church has never publicly explained its problems with the law but sources said there were a number of aspects which needed to be reworded to be more specific.
One of the bones of contention seems to be whether parishes or religious orders should be classified as voluntary organisations.
Another aspect is autonomy. The law states that NGOs must be autonomous but Church NGOs are not sure if this applies to them since they fall under the Curia.
The Church is also unsure about the extent to which it is willing to open up the organisations to scrutiny by the Commissioner. However, last year the Church stressed this had nothing to do with unwillingness to publish their accounts.
Commissioner Kenneth Wain, who last year threatened to resign if the problems persisted, has once again insisted these issues must be resolved before next year.
Prof. Wain says he is not directly involved in the discussions between the Church and the government.
“But I’m kept updated with developments, such as when a new proposal is moved. They are discussing ways to amend the law to solve their differences. The whole thrust of the discussion is to try and amend the law in a way that the Church could be comfortable with it and presumably its organisations will then enrol,” he told The Times.
Prof. Wain added that these problems, which were evident since 2008, had to be resolved “in the very short term”.
“These matters cannot be deferred any longer. Discussions have taken long enough now. There has to be an outcome to the present state of affairs because, as things stand, it is unfair and it creates problems for the law itself. It would be unacceptable and harmful to let this drag on into next year,” he said.