The filing of a judicial protest by 1,473 police officers against the Commissioner of Police for unpaid overtime allowances dating back to 1993 has led to calls from the General Workers' Union and the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin for policemen and members of the Armed Forces of Malta to be permitted to form part of a union. Members of both the police and the military are barred by law from joining unions, though disciplined forces have their own staff associations.

Two questions arise. First, what lies behind the judicial protest by policemen on unpaid overtime over a long period and would it have been avoided if they were members of a union? Secondly, as a matter of principle, should members of the Police Force or the AFM belong to unions?

There has been little public explanation of the cause of the police predicament. But, at first blush, it appears to be an extraordinary tale either of maladministration or gross lack of proper public funding lasting 16 years, or both. Either way, it does not reflect well on the leadership and management of the Malta Police Force by the Commissioner or, indeed, by his political masters. If police conditions of service entitled policemen to claim overtime, why was sufficient budgetary provision not made in successive annual budgetary allocations to meet the anticipated bill? Was overtime being abused or operational necessity downplayed? Or did the Ministry of Finance unilaterally cut the police budget without consideration of the operational consequences?

These questions remain unanswered so far as is known. Could the situation have been avoided if the police officers had belonged to a union rather than being represented by a federation? Given the strength of unions in Malta, the realistic answer is probably yes.

But that alone is surely not sufficient reason to introduce unions to either the Malta Police Force or the AFM, as has been proposed. The deficient administration and political management that this saga has exposed should not, of itself, lead to the conclusion that the way to avoid a repetition is to unionise the police or armed forces. Hard cases make bad law.

The answer, surely, is to ensure that the staff associations already in place work effectively. In the case of the AFM, it is already known that their staff association, formed 10 years ago, works well.

Unionisation would introduce an outside civilian body that would inevitably cut across the "chain of command" in both the police and the armed forces.

The existing staff associations, on the other hand, reinforce the chain of command by allowing police officers and soldiers, no matter what rank, to have a direct voice in their own welfare, pay and conditions of service. They represent openly any perceived complaints or injustice concerning their pay and conditions without being constrained by the police or military leadership or the relevant government ministry. These arrangements accord with the majority of other European forces, which have introduced broadly similar arrangements.

The debacle over police overtime is deplorable. Really, one should have never reached such a situation. Having said that, the issue is still not a good enough reason for introducing unions to either the Police Force or the AFM. The over-riding consideration must remain the need not to undermine the vital, well-established, national security imperative that comes from the discipline and leadership of the operational chain of command. To be unionised would be to risk that.