Ever since I was elected to the Notarial Council, a Code of Ethics for the notarial profession had been mooted. Various arguments had been made to support the need for such a code. And yet nothing happened. One has to admit that even in Italy, which, in many respects, inspires many of the developments of our Civil Law, a notarial code of ethics came into being only in the early 1990s.
In 2001, I took the initiative to look for a foreign model which could serve as an inspiration for a Maltese code of notarial ethics. I could probably not have found a better model than the European code, which was ratified by the notariats of Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
I translated the code from French into Maltese, removing elements which do not suit our own circumstances. I also drafted some amendments and additions, basing myself by and large on the Italian code, although one clause was entirely my own creation.
The first draft of the Maltese Code of Notarial Ethics was presented to an extraordinary general meeting of the notarial corps in April 2002. I was seconded by the council's vice-president, Dr Joseph Vassallo-Agius.
The draft was almost unanimously accepted, save for a point raised by two colleagues, Notaries Pierre Attard and Joseph Henry Sciriha. Drs Attard and Sciriha highlighted the possible ambiguities of a particular phrase taken lock, stock and barrel from the European Code but which probably, in our local context, needed further clarification.
Drs Attard and Sciriha argued that the connotations of the phrase sigurtà guridika (the juridical security which a notary is expected to give to his or her clients) could differ in continental Europe and in Malta.
The point raised by my two colleagues certainly deserved being pondered upon. Later that year we met to discuss the matter further. In last December's annual general meeting of the Notarial Corps, the code was once again proposed to the vote of the notaries. This time, however, the amended draft incorporated the qualification drawn up by Drs Attard and Sciriha, who also seconded this second draft.
Notaries Anthony Spiteri Debono, Joseph Henry Saydon, and Joseph Henry Sciriha contributed further amendments, and the final version was approved unanimously.
The code is now awaiting official ministerial approval which should not take long to be granted.
I invited Notary Sciriha, who is a lecturer in Notarial Law at the University of Malta, to draw up a commentary on the Code, and Dr Sciriha kindly accepted. I also invited Chief Justice Emeritus Professor Giuseppe Mifsud Bonnici to share his views on the work, and to prepare a commentary from a philosophy of law viewpoint.
Despite his numerous commitments, Professor Mifsud Bonnici agreed. A working lunch with him, Drs Attard and Sciriha, and Dr Clyde La Rosa, another colleague who certainly commands respect, injected further verve into the project.
The next step is to see this project come to fruition. The problem with us lawyers is that we tend to discuss and entertain disquisitions on end, relentlessly analysing texts over and over again, perhaps ad nauseam, until the proper (usually elusive) meaning is found.
The temptation is there once again, and we have to resist succumbing to it. It is now high time that we release ourselves of the restrictions of being lawyers, and put on the attire of self-regulators. For this code of ethics is indeed a prime example in self-regulation. The implications of this are certainly far-reaching, and should be a very important evolutionary phase of our civil society.