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Law stipulates Citizenship Act regulations can only be ‘annulled’
A 1974 amendment to the Maltese Citizenship Act resolved that regulations could only be annulled, not amended.
6 February 2014, 12:00am
Miriam Dalli
Miriam Dalli
2 min read
Profs Kevin Aquilina
Any legal notice issued under the Maltese Citizenship Act cannot be amended, but revoked and a new one introduced according to the regulations issued under the same act.
Yesterday, PN leader Simon Busuttil said the Opposition would be putting forward amendments to Legal Notice 470 of 2014 - under which the Individual Investor Programme is regulated - after noting "a number of loopholes" in the legal notice.
But Article 24 (2) of the Maltese Citizenship Act, introduced in 1974, does not allow for such legal notices to be amended but only annulled.
Professor Kevin Aquilina, Dean of the Faculty of Laws, explained that the Opposition would have to present a motion revoking LN 470, just like it did with LN 450 of 2013 - the original legal notice regulating the IIP.
"The Act is clear in its sole use of the word 'annulment', meaning that it can only be repealed. In the case that proposals made by the Opposition are approved by parliament, LN 470 would have to be revoked and a fresh legal notice issued," Aquilina said.
Moreover, according to the regulations, any proposals to the legal notice have to be discussed within 20 [parliament working] days from when the legal notice is issued.
In parliamentary terms, this means that the Opposition has around six weeks to present and discuss its motion.
Article 24 (2) of Chapter 188 of the Maltese Citizenship Act states:
"Any regulations made under this article shall be laid before the House of Representatives as soon as may be after they are made, and if, within the next twenty days beginning with the day on which any such regulations are so laid before it, the House of Representatives resolves that the regulations be annulled, they shall thenceforth be void, but without prejudice to anything previously done thereunder or to the making of any new regulations:
Provided that there shall not be included in the computation of the said twenty days any period of four or more consecutive days intervening between any two consecutive sittings of the House of Representatives."
Miriam Dalli joined MaltaToday.com.mt in 2010 becoming assistant editor f...
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I want to clarify the mistake in the name of the Junior Minister which I made namely that the Junioor Mionister concerned was Dr. Owen Bonnic and not dr Chris Cardona.
One other pèoint that I want to makwe is that interruptions are normally carried out by losers.
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It is amazing that nazzi MPs who practically spent heir entire adult hood in parliament do not know simple things how it works, like this revelation that a legal notice cannot be amended but annulled. I simply love it when those around Simon give him info that makes him look like a donkey's crack.These are the people who have been running our country for such a long time.
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This morning watching the discussion between Dr Chris Cardona and Dr Mario Demarco on this subject I was absolutely disgusted with Dr Demarco's continuous interruptions while Chris Cardona was giving his views. If Dr. Demarco thinks that by this attitude he is going to gain anything I tell him that any decent watcher was disgusted by his negatyive attitude
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edyjoyce don't you think that as we say in Maltese they are giving him more rope to hang himself? Seems that Simon has never heard about the saying God please protect me from my friens, I will take care of my enemies.
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Doesn't he think before he speaks? How daft can he get?
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How can it be possible that Mario Demarco, Beppe FEnech Adami and Chris Sid, who work as lawyers ( I am not counting Simon Busuttil since he spent most of his time in Brussels and is definitely the least knowledgeable of the four on legal matters concerning parliament)did not know that a legal notice cannot be amended ???
Did they allow Simon Busuttil to say that he would be proposing amendments when the LN would be debated in parliament, to make it easier for them to take over the leadership of the PN in the near future ?
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This just goes to show that the PN only wants to put spokes in the Government's wheel or else he forgot what he studied in law school.
If it is the former, why does he (and the PN) keep harping about this? If it is the latter, then he may want to revise.
What I see as funny is people like Dr. Demarco who is a practicing lawyer in the Maltese Courts, to fall into these word-traps.
