Labour president handed embryo regulator’s top job amid conflict-of-interest concerns

Labour Party president Alex Sciberras has been appointed chairman of Malta’s Embryo Protection Authority while retaining his party position, raising serious conflict-of-interest concerns over his political responsibilities and family connections to reproductive rights and abortion advocacy.

Health Minister Ian Borg appointed Sciberras, a lawyer, to replace former judge Antonio Mizzi at the authority overseeing assisted reproduction and the handling of human embryos.

Sources close to the authority told The Shift that the central question surrounding the controversial appointment is how the president of the governing party can simultaneously lead a regulator whose decisions touch on politically contested issues, including IVF, embryo genetic testing and the treatment of unused embryos.

The overlap extends to proposals promoted by Labour’s women’s branch, Nisa Laburisti, whose executive includes Sciberras’s partner, Sarah Haider.

The organisation has long campaigned for broader IVF access, embryo freezing and egg and sperm donation. More recently, its president, Nikita Alamango, called for wider embryo genetic testing, additional choices for unused embryos and a debate on regulated altruistic surrogacy.

Those proposals intersect directly with the work of the authority Sciberras will now chair.

The Embryo Protection Authority assesses applications involving genetic testing for inherited diseases and develops the protocols governing fertility treatment. Other proposals, including allowing unused embryos to be donated for research or introducing surrogacy, would require legislative changes beyond the authority’s powers.

“The concern is concrete,” an ethics expert told The Shift.

“Sciberras is the president of the governing party and will lead an authority responsible for assessing and administering matters on which a branch of his own party is actively campaigning,” he said.

To make matters worse, Sciberras’s sister, lawyer Lara Dimitrijevic, is the founder of the Women’s Rights Foundation and an outspoken campaigner for abortion decriminalisation and access.

Dimitrijevic has publicly described her campaigning through Malta’s pro-choice coalition, Voice for Choice.

The appointment also returns the chairmanship of the public regulator to the Sciberras family.

Alex’s late father, former judge and Labour MP Philip Sciberras, was appointed chairman in 2013. Antonio Mizzi subsequently held the post.

The EPA’s responsibilities include overseeing ethical standards, inspecting clinics, maintaining confidential treatment records and authorising specified procedures involving embryo freezing, transfer and adoption.

Under the Embryo Protection Act, its board members must exercise their individual judgment without outside direction or control.

The law permits an experienced warranted lawyer to chair the authority. It expressly excludes ministers, MPs, parliamentary candidates and local councillors from board membership, but does not expressly list political party presidents.

Another appointment on the government payroll

The chairmanship adds to Sciberras’s succession of publicly funded advisory positions, board appointments and legal work.

The Shift reported in September that he had joined Chris Fearne’s Foreign Ministry as a paid adviser while serving as Labour president.

Ministry sources described the position as full-time, with annual remuneration running into tens of thousands of euros.

The same report cited earlier reporting that he received €267,420 from state coffers for representing Malta in the Steward Healthcare arbitration, which Malta lost. It also outlined previous government advisory and board roles, during which he worked closely with disgraced former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri.