The Labour Party has called for an investigation after a major transport provider was forbidden from operating some of its double decker buses.

The Garden of Eden garage filed a judicial protest saying that after a damning decision by the Fair Trade Commissioner last October declaring that the Transport Authority had unfairly blocked the garage from operating its vehicles for years, the authority was again trying to stop it through new legislation.

The garage said that when it imported the buses, it paid the relevant duty and the vehicles were released by the Customs Department. But the process was eventually suspended when a new legal notice came into force.

The law stated that buses built 10 years before the new rules came into force could only be used to offer a service on routes established by the ADT. This would affect some of the Garden of Eden's buses which were imported to be used across Malta.

In a statement signed by MPs Joe Mizzi and Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, the PL said the way the authorities were dealing with the garage was typical in a country where bureaucracy was stifling initiatives.

Labour said the operator in question subjected himself to the authorities, while the ADT continued to challenge the Commission for Fair Trade and the Office for Fair Competition.

The ADT continued to shift goalposts in a bid to have its way, the PL said.

The Transport Authority had accused the Garden of Eden garage of expecting the law not to apply to it after new regulations came into force.