Victoria monti hawkers have filed a judicial protest following ‘flagrant abuse and grave violations’ of their rights.

The issue surrounds their allocated space on Independence Square, Rabat, Gozo, and the local council’s attempts to move them to Piazza Savina.

The protest was filed against the Rabat local council, the Director General of the Department of Commerce, and the Police Commissioner. They said that the relevant licenses for 2017 were issued by the Department of Commerce at the beginning of the year, and that despite a prohibitory injunction, the Rabat Local Council seems adamant to move them.

They said that on 11 October 2014, the local council had told the monti stall owners that a decision was taken for them to be moved to Pjazza Savina in Rabat, Gozo. On 25 February 2015, the monti hawkers asked for a prohibitory injunction , which was granted on 13 March 2015, which prevented the local council from implementing its decision. Recently, they said, the council made a declaration that it intends to implement its plans in connection with the transfer of location for the monti.

The Council said it was basing its position on a Legal Notice published on 24 May 2016, through which a number of amendments to subsidiary legislation regulating commercial activity for monti hawkers were made, the protest read. On 8 March 2017, the hawkers  went back to the Gozo Courts, and asked that the council be stopped from installing bollards or other objects which would block the monti from setting up.

On 23 March 2017, they said, the court backed this request by the hawkers (prima facie). Regardless they said, in the days following, the hawkers were approached by police officials, who seem to have been doing their job following an anonymous report, to stop them.

They argue that the local council continues to go with their plans, and each time they go to setup their stalls, they are faced by a new setback.

Recently, they said they received a communication from the Department of Commerce, where they were informed that their licenses, which were issued just three months ago and were paid for till the end of year, were amended, removing the area specified for the monti as Independence Square in Rabat Gozo, and also changing their classification from ‘fixed hawker’ to ‘open air market’. They said that the change would mean that their commercial activity will be ‘from a stall space allocated by the Rabat Local Council.’

“This behaviour constitutes flagrant abuse and a grave violation of the monti hawkers rights, protected by Article 37 of the Maltese Constitution, and Article 1 of the European Convention, rights which, prima facie, were recognised by the local courts.”

They are asking the court to order the local council to obey the previous court orders, for the Department of Commerce to revoke the changes it made, and for the Commissioner of Police to assure the hawkers that their commercial activities will not be disturbed.