GUEST POST: ‘Legislation which can be so blatantly abused by ministers’

Legal Notice 150 of 2015 was published in the Government Gazette of 8th May, which means that according to Section 11 of the Interpretation Act, it must:

as soon as may be after it is made be laid on the Table of the House and if, on a motion tabled within the period of twenty-eight days after it is so laid, the House, within a period of sixty days after the said laying, resolves that it be annulled or amended, the same shall thereupon cease to have effect or shall be so amended, as the case may require, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder or to the making of new rules, regulations or other subsidiary legislation of a like nature.

So, the Opposition – or perhaps Marlene Farrugia – would seem to be still in time to call their bluff and provoke a full debate.

But more pertinently, this legal notice shows why the Opposition must put together a good legal team to examine closely not only proposed White Papers or bills, but also this sort of legislation which can be so blatantly abused by ministers or other persons vested with delegated legislative powers.

And the Opposition would do well to remember that after Section 65 of the Constitution was amended in 2003, in anticipation of joining the EU, all laws passed by Parliament must not only be made “for the peace, order and good government of Malta” – three criteria which are virtually impossible to challenge – but must also be in conformity with (1) full respect for human rights, (2) the generally accepted principles of international law, and (3) Malta’s international and regional obligations, in particular those assumed by the treaty of accession to the European Union.

All this means that there can be more objective grounds to challenge, by means of an actio popularis under Section 116 of the Constitution, laws passed by Parliament. I wonder whether the Opposition has woken up to this fact.