Former Labour Party deputy leader Joe Brincat has died, the PL said Friday.

He was 80 years old.

Brincat was deputy leader for party affairs between 1976 and 1980, and between 1998 and 2003.

He serves in six legislatures, and was also minister for justice, lands, housing and parliamentary affairs.

Prime Minister Robert Abela said that Brincat’s quest for justice and the implementation of socialist principles characterised his political work.

Born in Gzira in 1944, Brincat studied at the seminary and the lyceum. He joined the Friars Minors and studied philosophy and graduated in Latin, philosophy and English literature.

Bincat left the Order and became a teacher, and later joined the civil service. He later also graduated as a lawyer in 1970.

He contested the general elections in 1971 and obtained a seat in a casual election. He was elected in 1976 and in 1981 needed another seat from a casual election to make it to Parliament.

In 1976 he was elected as Labour's deputy leader in 1976, and served as minister for justice, lands, housing and parliamentary affairs between July 1979 and December 1981. He was also elected in 1987 and 1992.

In that same year, he unsuccessfully contested for the PL leadership, and in 1995 resigned from the PL parliamentary group.

He was elected again as deputy leader for parliamentary affairs in 1998 and made it to Parliament again in 2003, when he was named as the PL's spokesman for the environment. He quit politics when he was not elected in 2008.