Tougher penalties proposed

A Bill proposing tougher penalties for the illegal manufacture and storage of fireworks will be moved in Parliament early next week.

The penalty for unlicensed manufacture of fireworks, for instance, will go up from a petty fine of between €76 and €465 and a maximum of six months' imprisonment to a fine of between €2,500 and €25,000 and imprisonment ranging from two to five years.

The proposals seek to amend the archaic 1937 Explosives Ordinance, which has seen little change since being enacted despite the fact that the industry and fireworks manufacturing techniques have evolved beyond comparison.

Besides raising the stakes for rogue enthusiasts, the Bill will also introduce provisions such as allowing the courts to confiscate or suspend the licence attached to a property used for the illegal manufacture of fireworks.

The change will come in tandem with the setting up of an inspection unit which - for the first time - will carry out random checks on fireworks factories across the island. The unit should be up and running within a couple of weeks, in time for the festa season, when factories usually go into overdrive to meet the deadlines.

The changes come as part of a reform promised by the new Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici - who is responsible for the industry - after the latest tragedy in Naxxar, where illegally-stored fireworks exploded in the middle of a residential area killing two people and destroying three homes.

Under the new legislation, anyone caught storing or making fireworks in an unlicensed place will face fines of between €15,000 and €50,000 and imprisonment of six months to two years. The current fine is between €46 and €465.

More significantly, storing or producing fireworks in an unlicensed place will become an aggravating factor in a case of manslaughter or homicide that is the result of an explosion in an illegal factory.

Other significant changes include the barring of probation in cases involving fireworks offences and the court will be empowered to order people found guilty of fireworks offences to pay compensation to potential victims even while criminal proceedings are under way.

The Bill does not deal with the building specifications of fireworks factories or their distance from inhabited area, which is regulated by the 1937 law. However, a commission is soon to be set up, a ministry spokesman told The Sunday Times last week, precisely to make recommendations on these issues.

The law at present lays down minimum distances between factory rooms where explosives are stored, for instance, or between factories and inhabited areas. Such distances were calculated on the amount of explosives held in firework factories in the late 1930s. Since then that amount has grown exponentially, without the factories' structures adapting accordingly.

The Bill should be given a first reading either on Monday or Tuesday.