Non-governmental voluntary environmental organization Birdlife has, in the beginning of this month, applied for the issue of a warrant of prohibitory injunction against the government so that the spring hunting season for turtle dove remains closed. By means of a court decree, the court acceded provisionally to that request until the court case is definitively decided. Government, that in this matter is kept hostage at shotgun by the hunting lobby, is contesting this measure tooth and nail, so much so that it is requesting the court to hear Birdlife’s application for a prohibitory injunction without delay thereby ensuring that the court would itself end up complicit with government in breaching EU law.

Irrespective of what Birdlife is requesting, and government’s court appeasing reply to the hunting community, this newspaper had on 15 February 2023 reported that the EU Commission had sent a Letter of Formal Notice to the government to cease spring hunting for turtle-dove. This was not the first communication that the government received in this regard. A similar warning was also sent to the Maltese Government in December 2020 when the season was opened for common quail.

Hence, the latest EU Commission letter is a second warning to the government not to continue contravening EU law. This notwithstanding, government has opened the closed season for quail and was intending to do so as well for turtle dove were it not for Birdlife’s prompt intervention. See to this effect Legal Notice 76 of 2023 – the Conservation of Wild Birds (Declaration on a Derogation for a 2023 Spring Hunting Season for Quail) Regulations, 2023.

One would have reasonably expected, as a matter of common sense, that with two infringement warnings issued by the EU Commission, government would have exercised prudence and applied the precautionary principle – a general principle of law in environmental matters. One would also have expected that once government boasts that it acts in conformity with the rule of law (a joke of course!), at least to give lip service to what it boasts, it would desist from taking any further action to open the hunting season for turtle dove once it has been warned none other than by the EU Commission’s authoritative twofold pronouncements that such action was, and continues to be, in breach of EU law.

But as the government has been hijacked, and kept hostage, by the hunting lobby, the government – in full application of the principles of bad government and maladministration – places the hunting lobby’s interests before the national interest. Instead, once bitten, twice shy should have been the principle that government should have applied in this case. As a matter of fact, with these two EU Commission warning Damocles swords hanging on its head, it is a case of twice bitten, trice shy.

As our government still has to learn what shame is, and as it has not – and never had – any respect for the rule of law (other than lip service), the government has no intention to act diligently and prudently so as not to breach EU law. This is a disgrace that befalls the people of Malta because of our government’s arrogant and illegal behaviour. Malta will eventually be taken by the EU Commission before the Court of Justice of the European Union and, not only will we as a nation be shamed by the Commission and the Court, but we will end up making a fool of ourselves. And we would have no excuse for such illegal conduct as we have already been warned twice that we are in breach of EU Law thereby rendering our case defenceless.

What will happen if the EU decides to block all the monies it is giving to us because of our repetitive and incessant breach of EU law, or if the Court imposes an astronomical fine on Malta for government’s breach of EU fundamental principles such as those of good faith, the rule of law, and the precautionary principle? Will it be Cabinet Ministers who will pay the fine pro rata out of their own pocket? Or will it be the taxpayer who would have to bail out our irresponsible Cabinet? Will the State Advocate then in the public interest – because of government’s bad faith in the matter once it was forewarned twice of its persistent and consistent illegality and was thus acting in bad faith and in breach of EU law and fundamental EU principles – be suing Cabinet ministers collectively and in solidum to personally pay any fine that the EU Court may inflict on Malta?

This would be the least that office could do in the circumstances for resignation of cabinet members en masse would not of itself be a sufficient proportionate punishment to make good for the loss of Malta’s reputation EU-wide, the infliction of a hefty sum by the EU court, and other measures that the court might adopt, apart from not making good for the extra burden on government coffers occasioned by government’s own mischievous behaviour.

As always it is the citizen who pays for government’s maladministration, bad governance, abuse of power, arrogance in government, and flagrant breach of the rule of law.