Malta · 200 years of the Malta Police Force

The establishment of the police formed part of the reorganisation of Malta under British rule. After the end of the rule of the Order of St John and a brief French occupation, the island had been administered by Britain from 1800 onwards. The Treaty of Paris confirmed Malta as part of the British sphere of influence. Governor Thomas Maitland had the administration, judiciary and security services centralised to a greater extent. In this context, Proclamation XXII created a uniformly organised police authority for the islands.

This did not mark the beginning of law enforcement in Malta. Even under the Order of St John, courts, administrative officials and local officeholders had performed duties to maintain order. The new organisation, however, brought such responsibilities together in a permanent, hierarchically managed institution. Initially, a distinction was made between executive duties, such as maintaining public order, and activities supporting the judiciary.

The police continued to exist throughout the entire British colonial period. Its duties and legal status changed as the civil administration expanded and Malta later gained political self-government. Even after national independence in 1964 and the proclamation of the republic in 1974, it remained the police organisation with responsibility throughout the country. Its present-day duties include preventing and investigating offences, maintaining public order, monitoring traffic, and conducting checks at borders and points of entry.

The service badge as the coin’s motif does not refer to an individual person or a specific operational event, but to the institutional continuity of the authority across different forms of government. The round anniversary gave Malta an occasion to place a state institution at the centre, one whose history extends from British colonial administration to the present-day republican state. The issue thus belongs in the context of national commemorative coins that address not only political events and historical figures but also state institutions and their development.