Malta’s experience with the Engel criteria

Abstract

The proposed article will discuss Malta’s intriguing judicial experiences involving to the application of the Engel criteria, a set of criteria that re-classify an administrative measure into a criminal charge. The Maltese Courts discovered the Engel criteria quite late in the day but, within a few years of the first experiences, the Engel criteria took the Maltese system by storm resulting in findings of multiple breaches and what may be described as a veritable constitutional crisis. The proposed article will begin with a chronological and comprehensive analysis of Maltese case-law involving the application of the Engel criteria explaining where, in the author’s views, our Courts are getting right and wrong.