Parliament’s Select Committee for the Re-Codification and Consolidation of Laws is expected to ask Parliament to appoint two additional MPs to the committee or, failing that, a substitute MP from each side of the House. This would make it possible to hold meetings as scheduled when either of the two incumbent members, Francis Zammit Dimech for the government side and Josè Herrera from the opposition, would have other important commitments to attend to.
Suggesting this, committee chairman Franco Debono said that Dr Zammit Dimech, for one, was chairman of the Standing Committee for European and Foreign Affairs.
Agreeing, Dr Zammit Dimech said he would prefer two additional members, rather than substitutes.
Dr Debono said the committee had already come up against examples of laws being codified that also needed reform in view of the passage of time. Reform should, therefore, be in the committee’s terms of reference, once a motion to this effect was approved by a House plenary sitting.
Dr Zammit Dimech said a formal request to include reform in the committee’s work could lead people to think it was after more power, when it could hardly keep up with the vast work of re-codification. He was more in favour of the committee pointing out the need for reform of laws, because re-codification itself included reform.
Dr Herrera said it would not be ultra vires for the committee to suggest reform, but a motion to include it in the terms of reference would be. He himself was more in favour of substitute than additional members.
Kevin Aquilina, who is helping the committee with its task, said he had already assembled a 300-page compendium of laws identified as needing codification. Some sections of certain laws were outdated, such as different definitions of government in different laws.
The original British text of many laws needed to be cleaned up. No law said anything about government liability. The committee would then have to assess the impact of collating various laws.
Dr Debono said such conflicts could arise in court unless taken care of. If the committee included footnotes about them in its reports, which would amount to less than a recommendation, it would be handling each issue as effectively as possible.
Prof. Aquilina said that instead of having a number of quasi-judicial tribunals, it would make more sense to bring them under the umbrella of a single new court that would standardise provisions, terms and fees.
He also suggested that the statute Law Commission should be under a parliamentary official together with the relative committee and the justice unit. This would be making the best possible use of the best available human resources.
Dr Herrera said he had been pushing for an Administrative Court to take up cases normally heard by tribunals since 2000. At one point the government had proposed an administrative tribunal, but he had had reservations. He proposed that the committee’s report put forward his suggestion again.
Prof. Aquilina agreed with Dr Herrera because a court would bring together all the mechanisms of various existing bodies.
Dr Herrera said a court would be much more independent. What would be the point of having a magistrate or judge chairing a tribunal when he or she could be much more effective sitting in court? He said Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici had once told him that was his eventual intention.
The committee will meet again next Tuesday at 6.45 p.m.