Sant protests against 'anti-democratic' law

Labour leader Alfred Sant has claimed that a legal notice regulating the Local Councils Association, recently introduced by Justice Minister Tonio Borg, is "anti-democratic and shameful".

Speaking in front of the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry in Valletta yesterday, Dr Sant said that as a result of this notice, the choice of councillors to represent the association's delegations in European and international forums was now at the minister's discretion. So far, Dr Sant said, it was the president of the LCA who led the delegations, accompanied by members of the executive who were democratically elected by their peers.

However, the Justice Minister had changed the law to dictate who should represent the LCA internationally because the association may soon have a Labour councillor as president.

Dr Sant said the Nationalist government could not stomach the fact that Labour now had a majority of councillors in Malta and Gozo and that the LCA's executive would have an MLP majority after the elections that are to be held on Saturday.

The LCA executive, which has not held an election for the past four years, is made up of four PN councillors and two MLP councillors. But that is likely to change since the MLP won a majority of councillors following local council elections in March 2006.

In a statement, the Justice Ministry said that the LCA delegation at the Council of Europe's regions and local councils forum, CLARE, has always been nominated by the government.

In the case of the LCA delegation on the European Union's Committee of Regions, the six elected executive members have so far automatically formed part of the Malta delegation, which is made up of six members. But since the number of executive members was likely to go up to seven following the next elections, it would no longer be possible to have all members on the delegation.

The ministry said delegation members would be appointed according to proportional representation on the executive, "in consultation with the LCA".