Minister will adhere to ECJ trapping decision, but claims Malta ‘won cardinal points’

Malta’s minister responsible for hunting Clint Camilleri has said that Malta will be adhering to the EU’s ban on finch-trapping, after being told by the European Court of Justice that it was illegal to justify trapping under the premise of “scientific research”.

Camilleri said it would be presumptuous of him to issue any premature statements, but seemed to hint Malta might not be giving up on applying a derogation on bird trapping.

“There is a good basis on what to work upon… when the Maltese government has a cause it believes in, it can achieve good results,” he said in a long-winded video message he posted to Facebook, in which he claimed Malta had “won cardinal points” in its legal argumentation in Luxembourg.

Camilleri appeared upbeat, despite the ECJ’s definitive declaration that Malta’s bird trapping seasons were illegal, claiming that Malta had presented a “clear and precise” legal framework for its scientific research derogation.

It was unclear why this was a positive, in a court case that upheld the Commission’s legal challenge to Malta’s second attempt at using the limited derogations available under Article 9 of the Birds Directive.

According to the ECJ decision, which MaltaToday has seen, the Court said that the ministerial declarations authorising the “research periods” to trap birds in 2020, 2021 and 2022 did not comply with Article 9 of the Birds Directive - the legal section which explains how and when member states might derogate from the ban.

In fact the Court said that the minister’s declarations “do not contain any precise and adequate statement of reasons as regards such absence. In particular, in those declarations there is no mention of other standard scientific means of research in the ornithological field, whether it is for the purpose of confirming or rejecting them.”

Based on that alone, the Commission’s plea that Malta failed to state reasons concerning the absence of “[an]other satisfactory solution” had to be upheld.

And because of that, the ECJ said it was not necessary for the Commission to have to demonstrate the absence of another satisfactory solution and that the Maltese derogation scheme did not pursue a research objective.

Camilleri however claimed Malta had lost on a technicality, “because Malta did not explain why there was no satisfactory alternative, and rested solely on a government minister’s declaration,” that is, the manner in which the season is legally declared open.

But Camilleri, fluctuating from beaming triumphalism to furrowed brows, ultimately said that Malta will be adhering to the ECJ decision. 

“Malta justified its traditional methods well, in a bid to allow trappers to be part of this citizen-science effort… this point was not rebutted by the Commission,” Camilleri said. “The Maltese government won points of principles that will be a basis for the future.”

“We need to continue working, to ensure that what is ours by right is safeguarded… the ECJ accepted most of Malta’s points, except for this technicality.”