The Coalition for the Abolition of Spring Hunting yesterday welcomed the Prime Minister’s assurance he would not stand in the way of a spring hunting referendum.

In a statement, coalition spokesman Rudolph Ragonesi said he was glad to hear the government was not reacting to pressure from the hunters’ federation, FKNK, to block the proposed vote.

On Tuesday Joseph Muscat quashed speculation that he would try to change the law in an attempt to derail the proposed vote.

Dr Ragonesi insisted the pressure being put on parties to take a position on the issue made no difference to the referendum.

“This process puts the future of spring hunting in the hands of the people and they should be allowed to decide. This is not a partisan issue and should not be reduced to one,” he said, urging politicians to respect the referendum as “essential to democracy”.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he would respect the outcome of the vote.

The proposed referendum would be the sixth to be held on the island, all of which were upheld.

The first national referendum was organised in 1870 and gave the clergy the right to sit in the now defunct Council of Government.

The next, held in 1956, was on integration with the United Kingdom and was followed by a vote eight years later on independence.

Since then, two more referenda were held, one on EU membership and one on divorce in 2011.

This will be the first abrogative referendum, aimed at altering an existing law.