Government plans to revise the civil damages law are being queried because a Bill proposing extensive changes to the Civil Code had been moved in 2011.

The government insists that what it is planning is not a repetition of what had already been done and says it wants a better law than the one proposed three years ago.

However, lawyers who spoke to Times of Malta questioned why this had to happen.

Former Labour Cabinet minister Joe Micallef Stafrace, who was a member of the committee and worked intensely on the amendments, confirmed that a lot of work had been concluded.

“We worked hard although I could not continue till the end due to personal health problems,” he said.“To tell you the truth, when I saw the news this week I thought that they might want to tweak further what we have done.”

Former Nationalist justice minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici, who had presented the draft in Parliament said: 

“I really can’t understand what the government is trying to do. All that is needed to do is to move our law in Parliament again and introduce amendments if the minister feels some other minor changes are necessary. With all due respect to [Justice] Minister [Owen] Bonnici, this is just a repetition of work and further money down the drain,” Dr Mifsud Bonnici said.

Dr Bonnici rejected suggestions that this was a waste of time and insisted that the new initiative should serve to improve what had already been proposed in 2011.

Making it clear that recent European developments would be taken into consideration, Dr Bonnici said the committee “will also examine the proposal for reform made in 2011 and any positive aspects in the proposals would be maintained.”