Years of uncertainty have come to an end for members of the Civil Protection Department with a ruling by the courts yesterday that effectively grants them the right to seek representation over their working conditions.

The CPD had lost their original court case seeking the right to be represented but in February last year, the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal. The Government was given four months to appoint a joint negotiating council.

Following that ruling, the government filed an application before the Court of Appeal requesting that the case be heard again but that application was thrown out yesterday.

In January, the CPD association’s president, Emanuel Psaila, said civil protection personnel were demotivated, drained and hurt after a “bureaucratic martyrdom” lasting 14 years.

He had appealed to the authorities to grant the association the right of representation and to address its requests concerning the Civil Protection Department’s working conditions, problems which had remained unsolved throughout the years.

He pointed out that, like the three disciplined forces (police, the armed forces and prison warders), the CPD was not allowed representation at union level but, unlike them, members did not benefit from early retirement.

Lawyers Ian Spiteri Bailey and Edward Gatt appeared for the Civil Protection Department.

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