Germany is still an enemy State, according to post-war legislation that speaks about the distribution of enemy property.
Enacted after World War II, the ordinance still forms part of the statute book despite being outdated. But this will soon change.
It is one of 36 laws that will be repealed after the government conducted a ‘spring-cleaning’ exercise to get rid of archaic and irrelevant legislation.
The exercise also identified 116 legal notices that will be removed and nine laws that will be consolidated.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this was not a one-off but part of an ongoing project to cut bureaucracy and simplify public administration.
There were instances when new legislation that transposed EU legislation did not repeal the old law, opening up the possibility for legal conflict
Cleaning up the statute book was one of many steps, he added.
The results of the exercise were presented to the Speaker yesterday and later to the media in the Chamber of Tapestries at the Palace in Valletta.
The occasion was dubbed Repeals Day.
The government is expected to put forward legislation to repeal the outdated laws or those that have been superseded by more recent legislation.
According to Kevin Aquilina, dean of the University of Malta’s law faculty, who also worked on the exercise, most of these laws became irrelevant by the passage of time. But more seriously, some conflicted with newer legislation or even fell foul of EU rules.
“There were instances when new legislation that transposed EU legislation did not repeal the old law, opening up the possibility for legal conflict,” he said.
One such example is a legal notice relating to the rationing of animal foodstuffs, which is being repealed because of incompatibility with the EU’s internal market rules.
Similarly, rules under the Police Licensing Act concerning boats will be revoked since the provisions are also covered by other more recent legislation.
Unnecessary legislation concerns legal notices issued over the years to cover government stock issues that remained on the statute books even after the stock period was over.
Another law that will be repealed is an 1828 ordinance that abolished the immunity granted to places of worship. This law allowed the police to enter and arrest any suspected criminal taking refuge in a church.
Prof. Aquilina said a law like this was no longer necessary, nor were others that regulated the sale of coal and cereal.
The statute book is made up of more than 500 laws enacted over the past 200 years.