Lawyer Chris Soler has been appointed as Malta’s new State Advocate, the second person to occupy this government advisory role.

Last year, Malta split the role of the Attorney General into two – an Attorney General focused on prosecutions and a State Advocate focused on legally advising the government.

The dual nature of the AG’s role had given rise to a potential conflict of interest in cases of government corruption, seeing as the person responsible for prosecuting such cases was also in charge of giving advice to government actors.

Victoria Buttigieg was originally appointed State Advocate but she stepped down to become Attorney General after Peter Grech resigned this year.

Soler has been working as a criminal lawyer since 2000 and also lectures criminal law at the University of Law. He was appointed to his new role by a panel of retired judges chaired by former Chief Justice Joseph Azzopardi.