The Nationalist Party has called on the government to immediately halt “illegal” court tariff increases and refund the people what they have been made to pay since January 1.

In a statement, Justice Shadow Minister Jason Azzopardi referred to a judicial protest filed by 43 lawyers today claiming that higher registration fees being imposed at the law courts are illegal since they are not covered by law and expressed concern that the government was giving a bad example, allegedly breaking the law.

The government, he said, had been collecting taxes from the courts behind the people’s back and without Parliament’s approval for 27 days.

The protest was unprecedented and of concern and the fact that the minister believed he was above the law and ordered the courts to raise tariffs which were not the result of any law approved by Parliament showed that the government did not care about the law.

If the government, which supposedly led by example, blatantly breached the law which it had the duty to ensure observed by everyone, what example was it giving those who wanted to take the law into their own hands, he asked.