A meeting of the members of Repubblika adopt yesterday changes to its Statute adding to its list of functions the mission of an anti-mafia organisation.

Repubblika has since its inception campaigned to raise awareness of the infiltration of the mafia in the economy of Malta as well as its government and state institutions. In the immediate aftermath of the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia, this was initially a matter of controversy as officials and people in public life – later found in many cases to have themselves been implicated in mafia activities – strongly denied the existence of the mafia.

But a state institution, the Daphne Caruana Galizia inquiry, has now recognised mafia infiltration in the Maltese state and has recommended the adoption of specific anti-mafia legislation.

Laws alone are not enough to fight the mafia. Honest citizens need to stand tall to protect free and democratic life and they must support and protect officials working within the state’s institutions in the fight against the mafia.

Repubblika’s members adopted a new set of statutory functions to take up the role that civil society is required to play in a democracy to represent law-abiding citizens and help functioning institutions combat the mafia phenomenon.

The drafting is modelled on anti-mafia civil society organisations overseas, particularly the Italian umbrella organisation Libera dalle mafie with whom Repubblika has a close collaboration.

Repubblika believes it is intolerable that even after they are indicted for mafia crimes, mafiosi continue to profit from their business fronts and honest citizens continue to subsidise their ill-gotten gains paying the price of social inequality and environmental degradation.

In pursuit of its new functions, Repubblika will be campaigning for legislation to confiscate buildings and assets belonging to mafiosi and transfer them to the community as a form of compensation to the community.

It is not just people who are robbed, cheated, extorted or killed that are victims of the mafia. The institutionalisation of corruption makes victims of all law-abiding citizens and compensation is due to them by mafiosi who are made to face justice for their crimes.

The new functions of Repubblika are to:

  • provide support and services to associations, entities, schools and other educational institutions committed to fight mafia crime and corruption and the criminal exertion of hidden power, in their efforts to prevent these crimes, to conduct research and acquire knowledge of the phenomena, to undertake acts of solidarity, and to provide assistance particularly to victims of the mafia, and to work on education that promotes the rule of law, active and responsible citizenship and the respect and protection of the environment;
  • promote the adoption of legislation that provides for the reuse for public and social utility of goods taken away by judicial action from the mafia and from people and organisations convicted for corruption;
  • facilitate the creation of a stable link between associations, entities, educational institutions and other agencies committed to the rule of law and against the mafia in different sectors of civic and social life (cultural, educational, academic, social, sports, environmental protection and sustainability);
  • promote dialogue and cooperation with the State’s institutions;
  • promote any useful act that protects the dignity of the person, social justice, and fundamental rights enshrined in Malta’s Constitution and protected by international covenants;
  • promote any act that affirms a culture of mutual respect, equal opportunities, hospitality and embracing cultural, ethnic, religious and gender differences;
  • promote acts that support the fight against social and economic discrimination, any form of exploitation, the trafficking of human beings and any other form of discrimination that detracts from human dignity;
  • promote any act that helps guarantee to every individual, particularly more vulnerable people, equal human, social and cultural dignity, fighting any form of social, human or educational poverty;
  • promote the drawing up of strategies for non-violent resistance against the domination of the mafia in Malta and mafia infiltration within the community and institutions; promoting a culture of accountability for people of authority who abuse their power in breach of the obligations of their public function; draw up non-violent strategies of resistance to corruption;
  • participate in international networks of associations and entities committed to the prevention of organised crime and the erosion of the rule of law and the promotion of rights and social justice, enhancing the development of international solidarity;
  • promote opportunities of reflection and useful action to guarantee the right of remembrance of Daphne Caruana Galizia and other innocent victims of the mafia, recording and telling their individual stories, giving voice to the testimony of their families, and adopting the memory of their loss as a legacy for the continued fight against the mafia.