The Administrative Justice Bill, discussed in Wednesday’s parliamentary sitting, makes provision for the judicial review of administrative action. Citizens will now have the faculty of recourse to an administrative tribunal, when they feel that an unjust administrative action, be it by law and/or by fact, was taken against them. The bill ensures, through certain provisions, that cases will not be lengthy, will be advised by experts, and will also be informal, inexpensive, transparent, and adjudicated impartially and independently.

Praising the bill, Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi said it had far-reaching effects into the legal culture of our country. Stressing the importance the bill gives to the rule of law, he assured the opposition that it grants citizens the possibility to question actions taken by the executive. For the first time certain basic principles of natural justice will be forcibly applicable to more than 100 tribunals, falling under the Administra-tive Tribunal umbrella.

Democracy is at the very heart of this bill, continued Dr Azzopardi. He did however point out that if the House is reviewing the adoption of laws that safeguard the principle of the rule of law, and give further rights to citizens, then the anachronistic article within the Constitution that states that the public service commission is above the law, has to be abrogated—“la legge è uguale per tutti!”

Investment, Industry and IT Minister Austin Gatt said that the bill was embedded in particular aspects of the politics of the PN government. Comparing times to those headed by the Malta Labour Party, he felt that the bill represents another step towards strengthening citizens’ rights. The power of public administration will be subject to pre-established regulations and to a higher authority.

“In a living democracy, in an ambit of law that is just, even if the consequences are that decisions taken by the administration will take time, it is but a small price to pay for the safeguarding of democracy and justice.” Dr Gatt went on to say that the bill was another step in the reform of administrative justice. “We had a gaping hole in our judiciary system, even though it is second to none, but we had the courage to confront it.”

Tourism Minister Francis Zammit Dimech started his intervention by stating that the bill clearly gives the citizen the authority to react to the actions of government and the administration. He made an analysis of what the government has done in the past to facilitate the citizens’ right to demand judicial reviews of administrative actions, contrasting it with what Labour had done in the past. Among others he mentioned the setting up of the Ombudsman, the entry into legal force of the European Convention on Human Rights, and the assurance of freedom of the press.

“The fundamental value of justice, the reorganisation of the way it is dealt and the defence of the citizen with regards to administrative actions, are all within the ambit of this bill,” Education, Youth and Employment Minister Louis Galea emphasised. The Administrative Justice Bill ensures that “chi commanda non fa la legge”—we have set one bastion after another to build the plateau of democracy we have today. Dr Galea went on to say that when one has multiple levels of governance, there must be a system wherein citizens can exercise control over the daily happenings in their lives. He did however mention that more must be done to further develop the concept that the workings of these tribunals must be more transparent and accessible.

Concluding the debate, Parliamen-tary Secretary in the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici again highlighted all aspects of the bill, indulging in the fact that administrative justice remedies would be quick, cheap and accessible, that the tribunals were being “upgraded,” and that the bill was strengthening citizens rights in an area that had afore been abandoned. He assured the opposition that provisions of the current article 469A, the incorporation of which they were worried about, would not be included in the bill, but would be amalgamated at a later stage in the work that would come subsequent to adoption.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici confessed that he was unsure whether he would have been able to achieve this student dream of his, so as to be able to instate an administrative justice code.

The bill was later given a second reading.