Page 17 - Interpretation Act News Today

The supremacy of our Constitution is the keystone upon which the entire Constitutional structure rests. Our courts are empowered to strike down laws which are found to be inconsistent with the Constitution and in particular those laws which breach the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual set forth in our Constitution. The European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court of Malta have in a number of cases ruled that the infliction of an administrative penalty in a case wh...

Bernard Grech calls on government to withdraw bill amending the Interpretation Act While he said that the Nationalist Party will happily help with legal amendments, Bernard Grech insisted that the bill must be scrapped entirely 17 March 2021, 5:55pm by Nicole Meilak Opposition leader Bernard Grech called on Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis to withdraw the bill amending the Interpretation Act, saying that it isn’t faithful towards the Constitution. During his speech in Parliament, Grech a...

Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech on Wednesday called on the government to withdraw the bill amending the Interpretation Act, saying the proposed amendment will take away the fundamental rights of the Maltese and Gozitans.  “The Nationalist Party will continue working to ensure that the rights of the Maltese and Gozitans are protected. We will not stand for such an amendment and call for the Bill to be scrapped immediately.” Grech was speaking in Parliament during the debate on the Bi...

While the country is flabbergasted by the way the COVID-19 virus – and its mutations – has suddenly been spreading all over Malta, a very serious political issue has been brewing almost outside the introspection of the public eye. I am referring to a proposed new paragraph to be added to the Interpretation Act. The stated objective of the proposed amendment is “to regulate the interpretation of the classification of laws or punishments as criminal in nature with particular reference to th...

Parliament is currently debating Bill 198 ,amending the Interpretation Act. On the face of it, the bill appears to be an innocuous piece of draft legislation. In fact, however, it contains provisions that undermine the supremacy of the constitution and make nonsense of the review by our Constitutional Court of government actions. Prominent constitutional experts, including Giovanni Bonello, a former judge of the European Court of Human Rights, and Anthony Borg Barthet, a former attorney general...

The Nationalist Party says parliament should not discuss and approve laws that are 'manifestly unconstitutional'

The proposed introduction of Article 13A of the Interpretation Act, which seeks to lay down parameters that distinguish administrative fines, which remain to be so considered, from those which, by reason of their severity, “may be interpreted as constituting a punishment of a criminal nature” leading to a criminal offence, has provoked some reaction. It seems that the main contention centres around the premise that the latter ‘stiff’ administrative fines should be solely imposed by cour...

The Queen and Prince Philip (Titanic Belfast/ Flickr) The ultimate winners of the circus that’s arisen in response to Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey are the creators of The Crown. If the writers of the Netflix drama feared they might eventually run out of material, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have just provided them with another few series’ worth of titillating content, containing all of the show’s favourite themes – marital strife, sibling rivalry and the impossi...

“Is it true to say multiple claims might have been presented by one person?” +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ How can that be when each legally resident person of working age has a specific or unique National Insurance number as his or her only identifier for contributions or benefits-claiming purposes? A contributor might be able to work for more than one employer but can identify only one employer to make any benefit claim. Just like a taxpayer cannot claim more than on...

March 3, 2021 Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn on Tuesday blasted the penalties being imposed by the court on violators of the COVID-19 directives, declaring that although he is not a lawyer, the directives are “ill-conceived and contrary to law”. Yet, despite suggesting a flaw that potentially invalidates the rules, he insisted that the directives are the law and must be obeyed “until such time as they are revoked or struck down by a court of law”. The Emergency Management...