It took more than a year and a half in the highest legal jurisdiction of law, the European Court of Justice, but spring hunting Malta has been put to an end.

The European Commission had taken Malta to court, charging that spring hunting was opened illegally between 2004 and 2008. The court, while stating that Malta had put forward valid arguments, based its ruling mostly on the issue of proportionality, affirmed that the numbers of quail and turtle dove killed in the spring migration far outweighed other arguments.

Another very interesting point put forward during the case was about the alleged agreement that the government of the time had claimed to have struck with the European Union on the issue of hunting in the pre-accession negotiations.

The then prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami had written personally to hunters saying an agreement had been reached whereby the practice could continue following Malta's accession to the EU.

Not so, claims the European Commission. The European Court of Justice said that no documents had been presented to the court that evidenced any sort of agreement between Malta and the European Union over the retention of spring hunting in Malta following the country's EU accession.

Interesting also was the reply by the commission to Malta's legal argument that the EC "failed to have regard to the legitimate expectations which it engendered during the accession negotiations with regard to the ability of the Republic of Malta to authorise spring hunting".

The Commission said it "gave no undertaking to that effect to that member state". It is an interesting situation indeed and could give rise to numerous conspiracy theories. The FKNK will have a field day with this find and will assert that it had said this all along.

Something, though, is truly amiss. Why would the Maltese legal team say that the EC failed to respect the agreement, only for the EC to turn round and say that no accord was ever struck to that effect?

Was there an agreement? Wasn't there? At this point, it is going to be the word of the Maltese Government against the word of the European Commission. Whatever the case may be, hunters are sure to feel disillusioned and will also feel as if they have been taken for a ride.

Agree or not with the practice of hunting, there is some explaining to do. Were people purposely deceived? Was there a glitch in negotiations? Was something lost in translation? Was the government merely trying to save face in opting to be taken to trial in the ECJ? No one likes to be deceived, whether with bad intent or not.

Hunters are also likely to be angered by the fact that in being restricted to hunting in autumn, many will not have access to shooting areas. The species in question migrate en masse over the island in Spring, but only in straggles over the west coast in Autumn. Malta being how it is, they will not have legal access to the areas from where they can hunt and this is likely to cause friction.

Hunters, however, see a slim ray of hope in that the ruling was "open ended" to a certain extent and that there was still a possibility of Malta applying for a derogation from the directive in the future.

While the case was fought between the state and Europe, many people in Malta are seeing it as an actual victory for the people, in the sense that the majority of Maltese citizens are against the practice of hunting anyway. While the chapter is supposedly closed, one wonders if there is to be a sequel to the story.