Amendments to the Voluntary Organisations Act, 2007

CLOSED CONSULTATION - CONSULTATION CONCLUDED

Mur għall-verżjoni Maltija

From:	Ministry for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties
Published:	26 April 2016
Running till:	6 July 2016
Last Updated:	21 August 2018

Consultation Outcome: Final Report
Legislative Public Consultations - Final Report on Amendments to the Voluntary Organisations Act.pdf

ORIGINAL CONSULTATION

1. Background

The Scope of the amendments to the Voluntary Organizations Act and related legislation is principally to address the difficulties which have arisen in the interpretation and application of the Act and ancillary legislation in the light of practice since its coming into force in 2007. Important amendments relate to the resolution of issues which arose with the Church Authorities in Malta in relation to religious organizations, the introduction pf public benefit as one of the tests for the treatment as a Voluntary organization, a more detailed treatment of the definition of “non-profit making”, rules on mandatory enrolment and notifications, rules on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing in the non-profit sector, clearer rules on the ability of Voluntary Organizations to engage in trade and the strenghtening of the powers of the Commissioner in relation to defaulting organizations. These amendments are supplemented by consequential amendments to other laws in particular the Civil Code, mainly its Second Schedule and the Public Collections Act.

These amendments have been considered increasingly neccesary by the Commissioner for Voluntary Organizations and the Council for Voluntary Sector in view of practical experiences over the last years and also by the Financial Intelligence Analyses Unit in view of the review of Malta by Moneyval and the importance of action to avoid being negatively assesed in the national interest.

White Paper 2016 Amendments to the Voluntary Organisations Act , 2007

2. A Bill entitled

An Act to amend the Volountry Organisations Act and to make consequential and other amendments to the Civil Code and to the Second Schedule to the Civil Code, the Public Collections Act, the Notarial Profession and Notarial Archives Act, the Arbitration Act , the Companies Act and the Public Registry Act.

2. The Bills

The Act published today for public consultation is:

The Act to amend the Voluntary Organisations Act and to make consequential and other amendments to the Civil Code and to the Second Schedule to the Civil Code, the Public Collections Act, the Notarial Profession and Notarial Archives Act, the Arbitration Act , the Companies Act and the Public Registry Act.

The White Paper entitled 2016 Amendments to the Voluntary Organisations Act, 2007 is also being published so that a better explanation of the intensions of the legislator on the abovementioned amendments will be available for all those who participate in this consultation process.

3. Consultation Questions

The Government is asking the general public to reflect on the two Bills and provide input as follows:

a) Where there is an issue with a specific Article in any one of the Bills, a direct reference to the name of the Bill and the specific Article is made, and comments about what needs to be added or removed are presented as brief and direct as possible.

It will be appreciated if alternative formulations, additions, subtractions, etc., to ensure a correct understanding and the best reflection of the proposal/s being made.

b) Where there is an issue that the Bills are silent or are too generic about, the concern should first be explained and ideally formulated in terms of a concrete proposal.

Please be informed that submissions will be published on the webpage of this consultation at the end of the scoping phase. The lead Ministry has sole discretion upon the publication of comments.

Received contributions, together with the identity of the contributor, will be published on the Internet, unless the contributor objects to the publication of his/her personal data on the grounds that such publication would harm his/her legitimate interests. In this case the contribution may be published in anonymous form. Otherwise the contribution will not be published nor will, in principle, its content be taken into account. Any objections concerning the publication of personal data should be sent to the service responsible for the consultation on the following email address: onlineconsultations@gov.mt.

Comments cannot exceed 10,000 characters. If you think your submission will exceed this limit please make use of the email address published on this consultation page.

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In addition, please be aware of:

· Disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (Chapter 496)

As we are a public authority all documents we hold, including documents related to this public consultation process, may be released following a request to us under the Freedom of Information Act (Chap. 496), unless such request may be subject of an exemption arising from the same Act.

www.konsultazzjoni.gov.mt

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Reference Number: PR172814
Press Release Issue Date: Dec 06, 2017