Opposition MP Joe Brincat has filed a private member’s bill in Parliament, calling for amendments to be made to the law so that cases of corruption would no longer be subject to become time-barred.

For an offence to be time-barred means that the offence in question is governed by a specific amount of time within which charges must be filed or – as the name suggests – charges cannot be pressed due to going over the stipulated time limit for filing them.

The private member’s bill reads: “Article 692 of the principal law shall be amended as follows: (1) the present article shall be renumbered as sub article (1);

(2) Immediately after sub-article (1) there shall be inserted the following new sub -article (2): “(2) Prescription shall not run when the crime is one as mentioned in articles 115 to 118, 120, 121A, 121B, 121C, 121D, 124, 125, and 126; Provided further that this sub-article shall also apply to crimes the prescriptive period for which has not elapsed, when this sub-article shall come into force.”

Dr Brincat gave his reasoning as follows: “This bill is intended to remove the running of the prescriptive time for crimes of corruption and abuse in administration.”

He continued: “The amendment also makes it clear that, for those crimes the prescriptive period of which has not lapsed, the provisions of this sub-article shall apply. This is in conformity with Article 29 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, which came into force on 14 December, 2005.”