(Adds Joseph Muscat's address)

The Labour Youths Forum has called on the Labour Party to prepare its proposal for legislation on divorce and to include it in the next electoral programme.

The call was made in a motion approved during the forum's annual general meeting.

Forum president Daniel Micallef said that gone was the time when the party kept a step back from saying what it truly believed.

"As a progressive party, one of the crucial issues for us is civil rights. In a country which has been part of the EU for five years, we can no longer have a situation where, when discussion arises on certain rights, such issues are sidelined, swept under the carpet or gagged by the conservative authorities," Mr Micallef said.

Labour leader Joseph Muscat has already proclaimed to be in favour of divorce legislation and said he was prepared to present a bill in Parliament to introduce it in Malta.

Addressing the meeting, Dr Muscat said that corruption and accountability scandals taking place in the country were making people lose faith in the political system.

He said that, for the Labour Party, this was not acceptable in a modern European country.

Dr Muscat referred to the new power station contract to the Danish company BWSC.

He said it was not normal and acceptable to have a person boasting of his connections with politicians getting commissions worth millions for the company to win the contract. It was not normal for the law to be change in the middle of a tender process. This, however, seemed acceptable to the Nationalist Party.