Two auctions for the sale of weapons, cars and boats owned or in possession of the police will not be held by court order.

A total of 800 firearms, 129 cars, boats and spare parts used by the police or were in their possession were planned to go under the hammer in the two auctions late last month.

However, they were put on hold after the Malta Police Association, Frankie Sammut and Malcolm Bondin complained that no public officers, including policemen, were allowed to make any bids.

They therefore asked the court to stop the Land Commissioner, the permanent secretary at the Home Affairs and National Security Ministry, the auctioneer and Obelisk Auctions Ltd from going ahead with their plans. They submitted that there was no law banning public officers from bidding at auctions, stressing that their exclusion was therefore discriminatory, arbitrary and illegal.

The authorities invoked Legal Notice 40 of 1966, which, they said, excluded public officers from bidding in auctions so as to avoid the possibility of any conflict of interest between their public role and participation in an auction.

Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court, noted that the legal notice quoted didn’t apply to auctions but to calls for the public to submit offers, but the authorities were interpreting the legal provision wrongly.

He concluded that all the requirements demanded by law to issue a warrant to stop the auctions were satisfied and, therefore, upheld the request.

The association in a statement welcomed the court’s decision and recalled it was alone in this and other issues in protecting the interests of the police corps.