The president is head of state and is elected by Parliament for a five-year term. George Vella of the LP was elected president in 2019, running unopposed. Under constitutional reforms adopted in 2020, future presidents will require the support of two-thirds of Parliament.

The president nominates the prime minister, who must be a member of Parliament and command a parliamentary majority. Robert Abela, the prime minister and LP leader since 2020, secured a new mandate after the March 2022 parliamentary elections.

Members of the unicameral Parliament are elected for a five-year term through a system of single transferable votes in multimember districts. Maltese elections are generally considered free and fair. In the March 2022 balloting, the governing center-left LP won 44 of 79 seats, leaving the center-right PN with 35. While the elections were the first to include voters as young as 16, overall participation declined compared with 2017.

The constitution and the electoral law provide for democratic elections. Members of the independent Electoral Commission (EC) are appointed by the president, on the advice of the prime minister after consulting the leader of the opposition. Successive reforms since 1987 have strengthened the proportionality between votes received and parliamentary seats won by political parties, but the electoral system continues to make it difficult for smaller parties to win enough votes for representation.

There are no significant restrictions on political party formation. However, smaller parties struggle to compete against the two established parties, which have superior access to private donations. The European Commission, the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) at the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Malta Chamber of Commerce, and the commissioner for standards in public life have all highlighted loopholes in a 2015 Financing of Political Parties Act, whose high thresholds for public disclosure do not ensure a sufficient level of transparency in the funding of political activities by parties and individual candidates.

After the March 2022 elections, the third-ranked Democratic Alternative and Democratic Party (ADPD) alliance filed a constitutional challenge, arguing that its national vote tally should have earned it a seat in Parliament even if it fell short in each of the 13 five-seat districts. The group also asserted that it should have access to additional seats under a new system designed to ensure greater representation for women; the gender adjustments only apply if just two parties win ordinary seats, meaning third parties cannot benefit.

The LP and PN have regularly alternated in government since independence in 1964, establishing a strong pattern of peaceful democratic transfers of power.

Voters are free from undue interference in their political choices. However, powerful economic interests influence the main political parties. In a 2022 report, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) emphasized that nontransparent lobbying is a serious issue in Malta, and that “the perception of undue influence and an opaque relationship between the public and private sectors is significant.”

Women and members of racial or ethnic minority groups enjoy full political rights and electoral opportunities. The number of women in Parliament more than doubled to 22 after the 2022 elections due to the implementation of a gender-quota system called for in 2021 constitutional amendments. The system awards up to 12 compensatory seats to candidates from the elected parties, but only if “the underrepresented sex” would otherwise hold less than 40 percent of the chamber, and if just two parties were elected.

Elected representatives are generally able to make policy without undue interference. Constitutional reforms adopted in 2020 were designed to reinforce the independence of the president and the judiciary, but the CoE has continued to call for stronger institutional checks on the government.

Anticorruption efforts are weak, and senior government officials and businesspeople have been linked to corruption and influence peddling in recent years. The Permanent Commission against Corruption (PCAC), created in 1988, lacks independent prosecutorial authority. The 2020 constitutional reforms empowered it to send its findings to the attorney general for further action. Also under the reforms, legislators—rather than the prime minister—select the PCAC chairperson. Nevertheless, the commission has limited resources and has not shown tangible results.

In January 2022, police searched the residence of former prime minister Joseph Muscat as part of a corruption investigation involving a private company’s 2018 deal to operate three state-owned hospitals. Separately during 2022, Yorgen Fenech, a stakeholder in energy firm Electrogas Malta, was awaiting trial for allegedly orchestrating the 2017 murder of Caruana Galizia. The journalist had accused the company of involvement in corruption before her death.

GRECO and its Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti–Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism reported in 2021 that Malta was making progress in fighting money laundering, and in June 2022 the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental money laundering watchdog, removed Malta from its “grey list” of countries that are subject to special monitoring.

Malta has a Freedom of Information Act and asset disclosure rules for public officials. However, journalists’ information requests are rarely answered. The Shift, an online news outlet, remained locked in a legal battle with the government during 2022 over a series of information requests dating to 2020, despite favorable rulings from the country’s data protection commissioner.

Government contracts are often withheld from the public. In 2021, the National Audit Office criticized an opaque 2015 agreement allowing a private company to operate three public hospitals, which were transferred to a second contractor in 2018 after the first firm collapsed. The auditor noted a lack of documentation, the initial contractor’s failure to meet its obligations, and concerns surrounding the company’s financial condition, among other issues.

The media are generally free and diverse. Residents have full access to international news services and domestic outlets, though state-owned media favor the government. Maltese journalists face harassment and libel accusations. While libel has been decriminalized, it remains a civil offense, and media freedom groups have repeatedly called for stronger legal protections against SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) cases targeting the media.

In October 2022, two brothers pleaded guilty to assassinating Caruana Galizia in 2017; they were each sentenced to 40 years in prison. A third codefendant had pleaded guilty in 2021.

The constitution establishes Roman Catholicism as the state religion, but members of religious minorities worship freely, and incitement of religious hatred is banned.

The education system is generally free from political indoctrination and other constraints on academic freedom.

Individuals are largely free to express their personal views on political or other sensitive topics without fear of surveillance or retribution. However, many Maltese, particularly public employees, fear retribution for criticizing powerful actors. Social media harassment is widespread, especially against journalists. In 2022, lawmakers were considering legislation to punish cyberstalking and cyberbullying, but critics warned that it could be used by political leaders to silence their critics if not properly amended.

The constitution provides for freedom of assembly, and this right is respected in practice.

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), including human rights groups, generally operate without state interference.

The law recognizes the right to form and join trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and strike. Antiunion discrimination by employers is relatively uncommon.

The judiciary is generally impartial. Judges are appointed by the president on the advice of the prime minister, who in turn receives recommendations from an independent Judicial Appointments Committee (JAC) headed by the chief justice. Under 2020 constitutional reforms, the attorney general is no longer a member of the JAC, and the chief justice is appointed on the basis of a two-thirds majority vote in Parliament.

Police and prosecutors typically observe due process guarantees, including access to defense counsel and protection against arbitrary arrest. However, court cases take far longer to resolve than the median among CoE member states.

Residents generally enjoy physical security and freedom from unlawful violence. However, some prisoners and detained migrants have been subjected to physical mistreatment, including torture, in recent years. In 2021, the European Union (EU) Agency for Asylum disclosed that it had received reports of such abuse, and the director of Malta’s prisons was dismissed amid evidence of ill-treatment and suicides among inmates. An official inquiry into prison conditions was conducted, and the government pledged to adopt its recommended reforms. However, the former prisons director was subsequently appointed as a government envoy in Libya to oversee cooperation on combating illegal migration. In October 2022, his successor in the prisons post was charged with threatening an ambulance driver with a gun.

Discrimination based on gender, race, sexual orientation, or religion is prohibited by law, and this ban is generally enforced. Transgender people may express their gender identity on government documents. However, a pay gap persists between men and women, and a survey of public opinion published in February 2022 indicated a high level of racial prejudice in society.

While Malta has committed to comply with international and EU rules on refugees and asylum seekers, NGOs working with such individuals sometimes report police harassment and hostility from far-right groups. Many asylum seekers are held in detention centers under overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Maltese authorities have also been criticized for resisting the acceptance of migrants rescued at sea, avoiding their own obligation to conduct rescues, and encouraging pushbacks of migrant vessels to North Africa.

Residents enjoy full freedom of movement.

There are no significant restrictions on property rights, and the legal framework is supportive of private business activity.

Divorce was legalized in 2011, and subsequent laws have legalized same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples.

Abortion is prohibited, meaning residents must acquire medication online or travel abroad to terminate their pregnancies. Prosecutions for illegal abortions are rare in practice, with three convictions between 2000 and mid-2021. Involuntary abortions resulting from secondary effects when a woman is undergoing medical treatment are not prosecuted. In June 2022, a US citizen on vacation in Malta had to be flown to Spain to terminate a pregnancy that became unviable, prompting the affected woman and her partner to sue the Maltese government. A draft law that would decriminalize abortion was introduced in Parliament in November.

Reports of domestic violence have increased over the past decade. In 2021, the government renewed its strategy to combat gender-based violence and domestic violence.

Residents generally enjoy fair access to economic opportunity and protection from labor exploitation, though migrant workers are vulnerable to labor and sex trafficking or conditions that amount to forced labor. Workers from non-EU countries complain of low pay, bureaucratic obstacles, and summary deportation if they lose a job and fail to meet tight deadlines for finding new employment and filing related documentation.