The hunting lobby’s petition containing 104,000 signatures calling on MPs to make it illegal for ‘minority rights’ to be abolished in a referendum is a disservice to democracy.
The petition was drawn up by hunters in response to another one organised by environmentalists calling for a referendum to ban spring hunting. Yet one word is conspicuous by its absence: ‘hunting’.
Instead, it calls on Parliament to amend the Referendums Act so that it will not be possible to hold an abrogative referendum that impinges on “the rights, privileges and interests of minorities”.
The promotion of bird hunting as a minority right does not hold water. Shooting birds in spring is not a minority right or a basic human right; indeed, the government has the right to regulate or abolish it if it deems it in the country’s best interest. That is why spring hunting is banned across the EU.
Minority rights refer to the rights of people who belong to racial, ethnic, religious, linguistic or sexual groups, and these should always be protected.
If hunting in spring is considered a ‘minority right’ where do we draw the line?
There can be little doubt that several well-meaning people signed the hunters’ petition thinking they were supporting the protection of minorities, without knowing it was a pro-spring hunting petition.
The hunters’ strategy might have been clever, in the sense that few people would be unwilling to sign such a petition (signatures still have to be verified) but it was nevertheless misleading.
One problem is that the hunters’ lobby believes it has the government at its beck and call, and the government is doing nothing to make it think otherwise.
On the contrary, the fact that Labour parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon received the petition from the hunters and presented it to Parliament sent out very worrying signals.
Dr Falzon is responsible for Malta’s environmental agency, so the mere fact that he is politically representing the hunters’ lobby against the interests of an environmental cause is baffling.
Equally worrying is the fact that the government’s advisory body on hunting, the Ornis Committee, recommended that Malta applies for an exemption from EU laws to open a trapping season during the peak migration season for finches.
Finch trapping has not been practised in Malta since 2009 when it was barred by EU regulations – this was agreed to during Malta’s EU accession negotiations – although a limited trapping season for song thrush and golden plover was granted in 2012.
Should the government now officially decide to re-legalise finch trapping, it will have to apply for a derogation from the European Commission. The chances are that the Commission will not agree to Malta’s request because the hunting of finches is considered off limits by the EU. Nevertheless, the granting of a derogation is a long process in the Brussels bureaucracy and in the meantime bird trapping in Malta will resume.
Why? Because the government wants to again boost its support among the hunting and trapping lobby.
It is difficult to comprehend how the capture of thousands of finches over a two-month period is a step forward for bird conservation and the environment. On the contrary, such a move would be invasive on the environment, with the countryside littered with nets, and, as Birdlife pointed out, will set bird conservation in Malta back five years.
Sadly, the law-abiding citizens and increasing number of people who truly care about their environment are once again being shunned.