The House yesterday unanimously approved the second reading of the Amendment and Repeals of Laws Bill, which seeks to remove from the statute book 42 laws that have expired or become obsolete.

Winding up the debate on second reading, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici said every year there would be this “crucial exercise”, by which outdated laws that no longer made sense would be repealed and similar ones amalgamated.

The government wanted to give laws more clarity and have them applied more efficiently. He agreed with Opposition deputy leader Mario de Marco on the concept of “one in, one out” so that every time a new law was enacted, an old law which no longer applied would be repealed.

Earlier, Dr de Marco said it was a good thing to occasionally review existing laws which were no longer significant or relevant. These so-called “dead-letter laws” needed to be removed from the books. There were 42 laws which were going to be repealed, including the right to take refuge in a church. Times had changed and it would not occur to anyone to avoid being arrested by entering a church.

The law covering privileges afforded to the Archbishop of Gozo was archaic, as was the Ordinance on Carrier Pigeons, which was definitely not needed in the era of email, he said.

Some of these laws even dated back to World War II and referred to Germany as “the enemy”.