Editorial

It looks as if it is time for wardens and councils, or at least some of them, to adopt a new mentality insofar as the wardens' duty is concerned. The present one leaves much space for unhappiness and speculation to boot.

Let's face it: No-one is happy to find a ticket under the car wipers, on returning to his vehicle after seeing to his business. The wardens' job, like the policeman's lot in the Sullivan operetta, is not a happy one.

But the General Workers' Union claims it "knows" that wardens in certain localities are illegally being instructed to issue a number of tickets per hour.

On his part, Justice Minister Austin Gatt says: "If proof is given to the government that wardens are being given a quota as to the number of tickets to issue, action would be taken as we had made it clear from the outset that no such instructions can be given".

The union's professional services section secretary Karmenu Vella had instructed wardens to ignore such orders.

Quota demands, if they exist, would not only give the wardens a bad name but would also expose them to great personal and unnecessary risk.

Either through over-zealousness or on account of such orders, some wardens are seen by drivers as going out of their way to allot tickets. In some cases, they have been attacked by irate people who felt they had been given tickets unjustly.

There are offending drivers who defend themselves by saying they only stopped for one, five or 10 minutes, or to drop a sick relative and take them up the stairs, or some similar excuse. An increasing number of drivers are reporting though that they were not even on the road on the day they were booked.

Wardens should not be religiously meticulous about their fault finding. A booking would not seem to be warranted when a mere warning could easily cover an obvious mistake such as going wrong way into a one-way street, when lack of area familiarity rather than a desire for an illegal short-cut is obviously the cause.

The matter of quota has probably arisen - apart from any possible order in that sense from on high - from the number of tickets issued for "no reason at all".

To compound matters, challenging a false booking entails waiting in a long line, wasting many hours, and possibly risking a bigger fine. Witnesses are hard to find, seeing most would not willingly spend a whole morning to do their duty.

Then there is also the question of how the wardens do their duty. Some do have bad manners. Wardens must be seen to be doing their duty with grace, their intent being not so much on collecting revenue as on keeping a locality in order. The impression some of the wardens give is that they just relish booking drivers.

Indiscipline is so rampant in Malta that few would dispute the fact that we need the wardens. But, as it has been said so often ever since they made their appearance on the roads, their role is primarily to educate, to instil discipline, not to raise funds.

Generally speaking, wardens still need to earn the people's respect. They will only win it if they do their duty wisely.