Opposition Leader Bernard Grech has called on the government to withdraw a Bill on administrative fines and discuss the way forward with the Opposition.

Grech was taking part in the debate on the bill that seeks to allow any public officer to impose administrative penalties and fines without the need of courts.

“The opposition will continue to be a stronghold for the rights of Maltese and Gozitan citizens as this bill is unacceptable and dangerous,”Grech said.

He invited Prime Minister Robert Abela and Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis to drop this bill, forget about the interpretation amendment act, and instead focus on discussing an alternative and better way of implementing better laws.

Grech mentioned a number of entities, saying that they have heavily criticised particular this particular bill, including former judge of European Court of Human Rights Giovanni Bonello, former Attorney General Anthony Borg Barthet, former Deputy Prime Minister and European Commissioner for Health Tonio Borg, former law faculty dean Kevin Aquilina, constitutional law expert Austin Bencini, and law commissioner Franco Debono.

“This bill goes against the constitution of our country as well as reduces the fundamental rights of our citizens,” he said.

In addition, Grech explained that in October 2020 Justice Minister Zammit Lewis submitted a bill to amend the constitution. He tried to amend the article 930 in order to reduce the right to a fair hearing. A right which has been deemed very important.

“At the time, the Opposition considered that this attempt was one that detracted from the fundamental rights of people, thus we did not agree to be a part of this amendment. Since this bill was going to amend the constitution it needed a two-thirds vote, therefore without the agreement from the opposition’s side, the bill was stopped,” he said.

“However, when Minister Zammit Lewis saw that the Opposition had paved the way for this amendment to move forward, he decided to present a bill amending the interpretation act. This act does not require a two-thirds vote; thus, this particular amendment can pass by a simple majority vote,” Grech said.