The Nationalist Party has proposed through a motion in parliament that the penalties for people convicted of assault or vilification of public officers should be raised.

The motion was presented by MP Jason Azzopardi, shadow minister for home affairs.

He proposed increases in penalties under various circumstances. For example,  When a person is convicted of assaulting, resisting or vilifying a public officer with the use of a weapon, he said the penalty should be raised to a jail term of four years from the current nine months to three years.

He said that the possibility of probation, conditional discharge, suspended sentence or a sentence less than the minimum should not be permissible for this sort of crime.

He said the same amendments were proposed in the past legislature but not debated in Parliament.

Malta, he said,  should have zero tolerance to assaults or vilification of public officers, including police, teachers, doctors or nurses.

MOTION ON POWER STATION APPEALS PROCESS

In a second motion, shadow ministers Tonio Fenech and George Pullicino moved amendments to a legal notice which sets up an appeals board for the new Delimara power station tendering process.

They said that the new board allows more powers to the board than any other similar body, even to the extent of annulling the whole process. In terms of the legal notice, if an appeal was upheld, the bidder would be reimbursed his costs, but, the MPs, said, that did not mean reinstatement to the bidding process. The contract could still be awarded to somebody else.

In their motion they propose that the new board should be disbanded and any appeals should be referred to the already-established, Public Procurement Regulations Appeals Board.

 

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