A circus agent has won the battle to run his show in a Floriana car park after a tribunal ruled that the Police Commissioner’s decision to uphold an “arbitrary” Cabinet order to stop him from doing so was abusive.

The Cabinet was not above the law and did not have the right to do as it pleased, the Administrative Review Tribunal said.

The circus agent, Johann Said, had submitted an application to hold the circus between December 12 and January 6 in the car park adjacent to the Granaries.

When this was refused he went to the Police Licences Appeals Tribunal, which decided in his favour.

Despite this decision, he was told that his application had again been refused by the Police Commissioner because of a new policy laying down that open spaces in Floriana should not be occupied by circuses.

In her considerations, Magistrate Gabriella Vella, who heads the Administrative Review Tribunal, said the Commissioner acted in an abusive manner when he decided to ignore the decision by the Police Licences Appeals Tribunal.

The Commissioner, she said, could not hide behind a decision of the Cabinet that “open spaces in Floriana, including the Granaries, are not to be encumbered by circus operators”.

The magistrate questioned the “arbitrary decision” of the Cabinet: why was it limited to circus operators and why was the property in Floriana singled out while other public properties were not?

The Police Commissioner had argued that the Cabinet, as the State’s highest institution, had the right to decide as it pleased about who could use its property.

But this was incorrect, the magistrate said. It was as if the principle where “no matter how high you are, the law is always above you” was being forgotten.

Furthermore the discretionary powers granted the right to do as one ought to and not the right to do as one pleased.

She said the Commissioner also tried to give some “semblance of legitimacy” to the Cabinet’s decision by arguing that the matter was related to traffic and public order.

Again, this argument did not hold water because it was up to the police to ensure public order.

The magistrate directed the Police Commissioner to issue the licence.

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