A judge this afternoon upheld an injunction to stop the auction of police weapons and vehicles that was meant to be held between tomorrow and Saturday after a protest over a rule that prohibits public officers from bidding for any item.

Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon temporarily upheld the application for an injunction filed by the Police Association and two public officers who felt aggrieved that they were being excluded from the bidding process.

The items were to be sold at two separate auctions. Tomorrow, the Police Force was planning to auction off 129 vehicles that were previously used by the force.

Between Wednesday and Saturday, the force was planning to auction almost 800 weapons that were used by police officers or that had been impounded by the police during investigations.

Vintage pistols from the First Balkan War and police-issue firearms from decades past and rifles from a mysterious arms dump were all being made available to collectors.

The auctions includes 425 weapons that were formerly used by police officers and a further 342 weapons that had been seized by the courts, mostly in connection with environmental crimes.

However, public officers were automatically excluded from the auction, with bidders being asked to sign a declaration that they are not public officers.

This led the Police Association and two public officers to challenge the exclusion, saying this was not based on any legal provision and was therefore “discriminatory, arbitrary and illegal”.

In the application, filed by lawyer Robert Abela, the association and Malcolm Bondin and Frankie Sammut said they would have liked to bid for items up for auctions but they were excluded from doing so simply because they were public officers.

They said they had tried to avoid resorting to the Law Courts but all attempts had failed.

Their request for the court to stop the auctions from taking place was temporarily upheld by the court. A hearing was fixed for next week to hear submissions.

The injunction was filed against the Police Commissioner, the Home Affairs Ministry Permanent Secretary as well as auctioneers Pierre Grech Pillow and Obelisk Auctions Limited. 

Video above was recorded on Saturday, the first viewing day.

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