At the beginning of yesterday's Parliamentary sitting, Mr Speaker Louis Galea laid on the Table of the House a judgment given by the Constitutional Court last Monday in a case filed in 2002.

The court had found that a piece of legislation infringed upon the rights of the individual. Dr Owen Bonnici (PL) asked the Speaker how Parliament should act on a matter of such importance.

Dr Galea said that the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure stipulated that when the Court communicated judgments to Parliament, the Speaker was duty-bound to lay the sentence on the Table of the House.

He said the Speaker did not have any other function, but the Prime Minister had a period of six months' time in which to see what corrective measures had to be taken for the legislation to be constitutionally valid.

Dr Galea concluded that this did not necessarily mean that a discussion had to follow in the House.