Time to reconsolidate laws

According to the spirit of Parliament's standing orders, in principle, new laws or relative amendments should be included within the framework of the existing chapters of the laws of Malta. Interestingly, article 180 of the said regulations makes it amply clear that only those laws that are not related to others should be enacted separately. The underlying rationale for all this is, surely, to promote harmony in our corpus juris and, thereby, facilitate the implementation and interpretation of our laws. Over the years, however, Parliament has, unfortunately, departed drastically from all this, as we shall see.

Before the codification of laws, our state of legislation was far from coherent. In fact, previously, the body of our laws emanated from various sources such as edicts issued by the Order of St John, foreign legislation and judicial precedents. The need was felt to regularise matters by codifying the laws of Malta. This task was finally undertaken by the eminent jurist, Sir Adrian Dingli, then Crown Advocate for the Colony of Malta. It was through his endeavours that, finally, in Malta, as on the continent, our laws were codified. Thereafter, the main body of our legislation was contained in four important codes of law, that is, the Criminal, Commercial, Civil and Civil Procedure codes. This reorganisation of our laws proved indispensable and upgraded not only the administration of justice but also the general governance of the country.

The standing orders hint clearly that Parliament should continue to enhance and amend our original codes of law and only to introduce ad hoc statutes and chapters of law when absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, as stated, this was not the trend followed.

Over the last 50 years or so, countless laws have, sadly, been introduced even though these would relate directly to the titles of law inserted in our codes. Take, for example, criminal matters. Though our Criminal Code caters for punishments, we have a separate Probation Act. Though the said Criminal Code is supposed to define the different crimes, today, a good percentage of these are separately enacted like, for example, the law which caters for drug-related offences and the law on money laundering.

If we look at the Civil Code, we find the same phenomenon. Here, we have provisions of law relating to such matters as rent and emphyteusis, which are the essence of civil law, that are not contemplated in the Civil Code.

The worst example in this regard is surely the Commercial Code, which has been rendered almost redundant. Here we see, for example, that the law on companies and partnerships, an essential part of commercial law, has been totally revamped. But even here, unfortunately, this new branch of legislation is nowhere to be found in the said code.

Our codes nowadays are regrettably inundated with cross references to various other bits of legislation and legal notices, making them at times difficult to comprehend and interpret. Unhappily, we have complicated matters inadvertently and we no longer enjoy, so to speak, the "user-friendly" legal system we once boasted of.

It must be pointed out that, nowadays, there exist new areas of law that are suited for codification. Lately, for the very first time, the Maltese Administrative Tribunal has come into force. This innovation, which is chaired by a member of the judiciary, will hopefully gradually evolve into one of the divisions of our ordinary courts. Thus, administrative law will hopefully start to enjoy a more important role in this country. I do not envy the presiding magistrate in this tribunal because he would have to practically start from scratch in setting relative jurisprudence in this regard.

Worse, our administrative laws are scattered in the voluminous legislation we possess. Here, therefore, it would be more than welcome if a code of administrative law as exists elsewhere were to be introduced.

The same can be said with regard to financial legislation. Thankfully, over the last 20 years or so, our country has succeeded in evolving into a financial hub. Today, we no longer speak of a financial economic niche but of a vital economic sector, the income from which will soon surpass that from tourism. Even here, legislation that can be very complex in nature is not contained within one chapter of the laws of Malta, and this is a pity.

The Select Committee for the Consolidation of Laws has just started functioning, and I feel a sense of satisfaction to form part of it together with my colleagues Franco Debono and Francis Zammit Dimech.

The scope of this committee is none other than to try and turn the clock back and reorganise our abundant legislation in comprehensive codes of law. It will surely be a very long journey but one which will hopefully bear its desired fruits.

Dr Herrera is a Labour member of Parliament.

Josè Herrera