Opposition spokesman on social policy Carmelo Abela said the Labour Party was committed to guaranteeing persons with disability the right to community life. It would made it a priority, when in government, to ensure their security when their carers were no longer in a position to look after them.

He said his party always had the wellbeing of persons with disability at heart and always sought to offer them and their families a better quality of life.

Speaking during the debate on the Civil Code (Amendment) Bill, Mr Abela said it would have been better if the introduction of the guardianship concept was enacted in an ad hoc legislation, rather than amending the Civil Code. However, the Opposition was committed to working with the Government to make the Bill as efficient as possible.

Although there was still more to be done, Maltese legislation on the subject had come a long way, and some of the challenges had been overcome – so much so that disabled persons benefitted from specialised services and a pension. Both sides of the House needed to take account of what was being achieved in each legislature and build upon that progress. This would avoid going back.

The European Commissioner for Human Rights had recently affirmed the need for equality and for a paradigm shift in European politics on matters of human disability. Mr Abela said Malta needed to keep abreast of political developments on the matter, because the Bill was proposing guardianship for persons with disability while the European forum already viewed this measure as a thing of the past. It referred to guardianship as an instrument which ultimately focused on the dependency and inability of the disabled person, rather than one’s ability, this by recognising the fact that some of these people needed help, he said.

Moreover, the legislator needed to always respect the dignity of persons with disability and as was recommended by the European Commissioner for Human Rights, to view disabled persons as subjects rather than objects. He said that empowering these individuals was the key. It was a pity that such important issues were being used to defer the discussion of other matterswhich the Government wanted to avoid as they could mean a vote being taken in Parliament.

This Bill was approved by the Cabinet in April 2012. It follows that this should have come up for discussion much earlier. The Opposition had striven to put such issues high on the agenda, and he urged both parties to work together on such important sectors.

Investment in education of persons with a disability was crucial. However, Mr Abela stressed that it was important to see whether the investment made was giving value for money. Persons with a disability had to be helped to go beyond secondary education.