It’s good to see that Times of Malta will publish letters to the editor, regardless of how opinionated the author is. It’s a shame, however, that the editor does not publish a comment to point out that if the opinion of the author is exercised by others, then that action could be illegal.

I refer to Allan Gatt’s recent letter (‘Pregnant teachers’, August 7). There are laws against incitement to violence, racism and hatred. Maybe we should have a law against incitement to gender discrimination too.

He asks: “Isn’t it the employer’s inviolable and immutable right to know whether his employee is going to get pregnant?” He then asks: “Have we become a communist country where the employees dictate the rules of engagement?”

I don’t know from where he gets his information about employment law and human rights but perhaps he should spend more time reading about them before putting pen to paper.

To explain it in simple terms, men and women enjoy rights because humans, irrespective of race, age and gender, have ‘inviolable and immutable’ rights and these rights are (thankfully) entrenched in European and Maltese legislation. These rights do not evaporate simply because people are being interviewed or in employment.

The correspondent’s letters get published thanks to another human right – the right to freedom of expression. But just because he’s free to express his opinion, it doesn’t make his opinion right and it certainly doesn’t mean that anyone else should pay heed to it, especially when acting upon it could be illegal!