Schembri was elected to the
Parliament of Malta in March 2013 as a member of the
Labour Party, and also became a member of the Maltese delegation in the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She authored a PACE report detailing discrimination against
transgender people in Europe after meeting with officials and transgender rights advocates in several countries, including England, Scotland, Spain, and Turkey. In the assembly, Schembri was an advocate for accessible and affordable
gender reassignment procedures, including hormone treatment and surgery. In November 2013, she announced her candidacy for the
2014 European Parliament election in Malta. She was endorsed by prime minister
Joseph Muscat, who had asked her to run. Schembri ran on a platform focused primarily on
job creation and
civil rights. She was not successful in the November 2014 election, receiving 5,983 votes and finishing eighth among the Labour candidates. Schembri was appointed as
parliamentary secretary for planning and simplification in January 2016 after
Michael Falzon resigned. She oversaw a series of major reforms of Malta's Lands Department after the corruption scandal that led to Falzon's resignation, including appointing an audit officer to supervise public land transactions over €100,000. She also introduced an amnesty bill for buildings with planning illegalities and increased fines on
fish farm operators whose feeding practices resulted in pollution of the Maltese coast. Schembri lost a close race for re-election in 2017, and was succeeded by
Clayton Bartolo. ==Other activities==