As part of its EU membership treaty obligations, in 2006, Malta transposed the EU ‘Birds’ Directive into local legislation by means of Legal Notice 79.

What if, in the case ‘EU Commission v Malta’ (C-76/08), the European Court of Justice had decided to preclude completely the practice of spring hunting in Malta?

What if, as a result, the Federation for Hunting & Conservation – Malta (FKNK) would have called on the Maltese Parliament, or one or more of its members, to hold a referendum to reinstate the practice irrespective of the ECJ ruling?

Would not the answer have been that the hunters’ federation cannot expect Parliament to ignore a verdict handed down by the highest EU institution?

Therefore, why have these MPs now, apparently, ignored a petition of the FKNK which contains more than 104,000 signatures of people who have voted for the same MPs as their representatives?

The ECJ ruled that “Having regard to those very specific circumstances, hunting for quails and turtle doves during the autumn hunting season cannot be regarded as constituting, in Malta, another satisfactory solution, so the condition that there be no other satisfactory solution, laid down in Article 9(1) of the Directive, should, in principle, be considered met.”

The court confirmed that spring hunting of turtle dove and quail may be permitted on the basis of its finding that the crucial precondition for derogations, namely, the absence of an alternative satisfactory solution, was met.

As a consequence, an extremely limited spring hunting derogation has been applied since 2010 in a manner that completely respects the conditions of the directive.

An anti-hunting coalition is now calling for an abrogative referendum to abolish spring hunting.

Should not the same answer in principle, as indicated above, be applied and the ECJ ruling be fully respected in a manner that completely outlaws the application for an abrogative referendum that is only aimed at overturning the court’s decision?