Police Commissioner John Rizzo stressed before a parliamentary committee today that a consolidation of the laws were needed.
The laws had become so dispersed, he said, that he sometimes needed a torch to find what he was looking for.
Mr Rizzo was speaking before the Committee for the Consolidation of laws, which has started a discussion on the consolidation of criminal laws and criminal procedure.
Replying to question by committee chairman Franco Debono, Mr Rizzo said he missed the old Code of Police Laws.
"I well remember the time when we had the Code of Police Laws. Despite its defects, we knew where to find the laws we needed, we learnt it section by section."
Unfortunately, he said, many laws had since been dispersed under various sectors.
"In the past we knew where to find the laws, now, sometimes, I need a torch" he said.
He mentioned various examples, saying laws had been dispersed to the White Slave Traffic Act, Mepa, the Wines and Spirits Ordinance, the Malta Tourism Authority Act, the Transport Malta Act and the Local Councils Act, among others.
As a result, sometimes, one did not know who was responsible for what. Penal aspects should, perhaps, have remained together.
For example, there was often confusion on who was responsible for the closure of laws - the MTA, councils and the police, he said.
The same applied to responsibility with regard to one-off activities, teen parties, places of entertainment, hunting and white slave traffic, among others.
To complicate matters, local councils could enact their own bye laws. Therefore one could have a situation of 65 different laws to regulate, say, hawkers with regard to distances, dimensions, times, etc.
"We will end up phoning mayors to find out what the laws are' Commissioner Rizzo said.
Attorney General Peter Grech said that while he acknowledged what Mr Rizzo was saying, it was difficult to codify all the penal laws unless one wanted to end up with a huge document which would create the same problems being experienced now. Codification was important in some sectors, but sector-specific legislation was important in some areas as administration became more sophisticated.
He also underlined that while codification was important if was also important that court procedures were improved to ensure that people got justice without delay.
Dr Debono said one decision which needed to be taken was whether the drugs laws should be part of the Criminal Code.
Dr Lara Lanfranco noted that in the case of human trafficking, there were provisions in the Criminal Code and others in the White Slave Traffic Ordinance, where there was sometimes overlapping of provisions. She had in fact drafted law to consolidate the laws and modernise them according to EU requirements.
The committee also heard of calls for a permanent full time commission to scrutinise legal notices and bye laws to ensure a level of uniformity and to guide the responsible authorities.
There were also complaints about who was responsible for what in the courts because of the introduction of various tribunals along with the ordinary courts. It was suggested that since specialisation was the way forward in view of increasingly complicated administration - in tax for example - cases could be directed to the courts and then redirected by the courts to the relevant specialised tribunal.
Francis Zammit Dimech (PN) said that while it was difficult to codify everything, one could identify areas which could be brought together under various titles such as drugs, human trafficking, the environment and procedural rules. The committee then could follow the same process it followed for the codification of administrative law. At least, if one could not have the old Code of police laws, one would have an index where to look up the laws.
At the end of the meeting the Police Commissioner said he also wished to discuss how, two persons, accused separately on the same sort of crime, were handed different sentence. One was jailed for 10 years and another, who cooperated with the police, was jailed for 12! And then the police were the target of criticism? He also stressed the need for streamlines and faster procedures.
There was also need, he said for laws to define morality and how, for example children aged 17 could at present enter gentlemen's clubs even as the courts heard defilement cases involving minors.
The meeting was attended by among others, representatives of the police, the prisons, the Probation and Parole Service, lawyers, the Office of the Attorney General and the administration of the Courts.