17-year-olds should be banned from gentlemen's clubs - Rizzo

Police Commissioner John Rizzo has hit out at regulations that allow 17-year-olds access to gentlemen's clubs.

Addressing parliament's select committee on the re-codification and consolidation of laws, Rizzo said that while the so-called moral laws existed, yet young people were being allowed into these clubs.

"We should be ashamed of allowing these things," he said, adding that at the same time the court was hearing defilement cases.

Rizzo also complained over the dispersal of laws where on subject, such as wine and spirits, would fall under various laws under different competent authorities.

"Moreover, there exists confusion on which authority is, for example, responsible of one-off activities. In some cases it's either the police, the local council or the MTA. Do we really need this overriding of responsibility and confusion?" he said.

Rizzo went on to say that he missed the Code of Police Laws that gathered the laws section by section.

Rizzo also raised criticism of how two persons apprehended for the same crime would be given two different sentences. This, committee chairman Franco Debono said, will also be discussed in the coming meetings.

The Police Commissioner also said that court procedures should be expedited: "Do procedures really need to take that long? Out there, it is the Police that people see and not the courts. What goes on in the courts is reflected upon us," Rizzo insisted.

The Commissioner added that it's an ordeal for police to manage to find a witness and convince him to testify in courts, prompting a reaction by Debono that witness protection was something to be also discussed by the committee.

Prison director Abraham Zammit also highlighted the importance of court's expediency. At present, Zammit said, a third of the prisoners were awaiting trial.