Residents to sue the government

Residents living near the fireworks factory that exploded three weeks ago in Gharghur are set to initiate legal proceedings against the government, claiming damages for failing to protect them.

The residents' legal team is expected to present a judicial protest this morning which is likely to be followed by a case against the government and the Police Commissioner specifically.

"We believe that the government and the Police Commissioner have abdicated their responsibility to safeguard these residents' constitutionally enshrined right to life and property," lawyer Stefan Camilleri said when contacted yesterday.

The Times revealed last Wednesday that the Cabinet had directly intervened in 2001 to bypass the regulations that would have forced the closure of both factories.

Both the St Helen's factory, where five people were killed in three major explosions on June 27, and the Briffa factory situated next to it are located 130 metres short of the legally recommended safe distance from public roads and inhabited areas.

The law regulating fireworks factories, the Explosives Ordinance, provides for a 183-metre safety buffer from any inhabited place or street that is "used regularly". The factories are located less than 50 metres from the road that connects Naxxar and Ta ' l-Ibrag.

Yet, after an explosion at the Briffa factory in 2000, which caused partial explosions at St Helen's, the Cabinet regularised the position of the factories through a memo that rendered the street next to the factories a "private road", reserved exclusively for "farmers, residents and fireworks factory employees".

This, according to an Ombudsman report which dealt with the matter, means that the street in question is "used as irregularly as possible", making the factories "legal".

Had the situation remained as it was, the Ombudsman's report had noted, "the authorities responsible for licensing the firework factories... would risk falling foul with the Explosives Ordinance..."

In practice, however, the redefinition of the road did not make the factories any less hazardous. A woman who was driving past the St Helen factory when it exploded on June 27 had a close shave when the roof of her car was ripped off by debris.

A woman who owns a villa which sits back-to-back with the exploded factory has sustained extensive damage which is claimed to run into the tens of thousands, while a gardener working there at the time miraculously avoided a shower of stones.

The villa was built before the fireworks factories were located there but the Explosives Ordinance defines an "inhabited place" as a group of houses "capable of being inhabited by 100 people". The villas in the area are sparse and do not fit this category. The police, who are legally entrusted with issuing licences for the factories, had defended their position when the matter was investigated by the Ombudsman in 2002 and more recently last year, saying that they were satisfied that the factories were "lawfully sited".

However, the residents insist that both the government and the Police Commissioner are taking a restricted view of what the law actually says. The explosives ordinance, Dr Camilleri stressed, places the onus on the Police Commissioner, saying that no licence shall be granted "unless the necessary precautions for protecting life and property have been taken".

So the point is whether the commissioner is satisfied that these people have been protected in practice, he insisted.

The Times sought the comments of the Police Commissioner last week but no reactions were forthcoming. The Home Affairs Minister Tonio Borg skirted questions connected to the Cabinet memo, emphasising instead that the location of the factories "accor ding to the current laws, does not infringe the distances laid down by law".