Anti-immigration movement Moviment Patrijotti Maltin has filed court proceedings demanding that the government withdraw from the UN Global Compact on Migration, saying that the UN document had placed legal and illegal immigration on the same level and mixed together the rights of refugees with economic migrants.
This emerged from a judicial protest filed this morning by Henry Battistino and Simon Borg as Leadeer and Executive Secretary of the Moviment Patrijotti Maltin (MPM). The document, signed by lawyer Mark Fenech Vella, calls on the Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs to either not sign the UN compact or, if they already have, to withdraw from it because “it is not in the interests of Malta and her citizens to continue to absorb more immigrants.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela had travelled to Morocco on December 10 to sign the global pact, insisting that this is not a legally binding document, but simply a declaration of political intent which affirms the sovereign right of every State to determine its national policies on immigration.
The MPM noted that this non-binding document had not been presented to discussion or public consultation
The organisation said it was “not against refugees, but against the trafficking of persons, racism and xenophobia and against immigration in a small country like Malta,” which, it blamed for population density problems, environmental issues and high and unsustainable rents for Maltese families. It also blamed immigration for precarious employment and substandard working conditions for Maltese workers on minimum wage, as well as problems relating to security and “other grave problems.”
Maltese families were suffering due to “unrestrained immigration” which was overpopulating the islands, said the MPM.
Signing the Global Compact was paving the way for signatories to accept more immigrants, said the organisation, which would exacerbate the country’s problems. The MPM said it felt that the Global Compact paid attention only to the economic aspect of the immigration issue and ignored the cultural problems immigration brought with it.
Warning that the compact was a prelude to declaring immigration as a human right which would “render nations incapable of refusing immigrants from entering and staying in their territories,” the MPM observed that the act of signing this document would create and expectation of concrete action, but that the Government was not saying what measures it would take to control illegal immigration.
The fact that the Global Compact is not legally binding did not mean that it didn’t have a long term effect on the interpretation of international law, said the MPM, urging the government to put the matter to a parliamentary vote.
The judicial protest said the MPM was opposing the signing of this Global Compact due to ambiguities in the text and as it is not in the interest of Malta and its citizens to continue to absorb more immigrants. It called on the Government not to sign the document and if it already had, to withdraw from it, and warned that it would be holding the Government liable for damages.