Hunters claim referendum is 'undemocratic'

In its first reaction since the Constitutional Court green lit the abrogative referendum against spring hunting, hunters’ federation FKNK said it was “prepared to face this challenge and will shortly be issuing directives and directions”.

The government this evening announced 11 April as the referendum date.

According to the hunter, the abrogative referendum would not be about the legal practice of spring hunting: “The Maltese people, all of whom form part of a minority group or other within the Maltese society, should be warned that following the hunter, it will be their turn. 

“This has already been stated publicly by the instigators of the action that has led to the referendum, when they said that this hunting issue is only the beginning, out of a series of other similar actions that will follow.”

FKNK said it would confront this “challenge in order to protect the legal rights, the interests and the privileges, not just of its members, but also those of all the Maltese and Gozitans who believe that democracy means, that whilst it is the majority that governs, such governance should, however, be made with full respect towards minorities.”

FKNK expressed its disappointment over the actions of the MPs – with the exception of hunting enthusiast junior minister Michael Falzon – who did not feel “the necessity to consider the petition of over 104,000 signatures” of Maltese citizens, that the FKNK submitted to the same parliamentarians in opposition to the principle of the said referendum. 

The figure, FKNK said, was greater than the one third of the electorate that elected them to parliament.

It also argued that the result of the referendum can only abrogate the Framework Legal Notice that was enacted to facilitate the enactment of a further Legal Notice that has to be enacted each time that derogation is applied to permit spring hunting.

“Thus, whatever the result of the referendum, no one can take away the right that the State of Malta and any Maltese Government enjoys as a Member State of the European Union, that whenever it wants, it can apply derogation to permit spring hunting, the same right enjoyed by all other EU Member States.”

FKNK insisted that the referendum is going to be “an anti-democratic, unscrupulous action of a handful of Maltese from minority groups in the Maltese society, who, in the FKNK’s opinion, are abusing the Referenda Act, and who ironically, seek to abolish a tradition of another Maltese minority group within the Maltese society. 

“This action is therefore, no more than a very dangerous attack, originated by a few persons from a minority group, with a hidden and political agenda, who have instilled social hatred and who are never satisfied, and who consequently want to abusively abolish the legal interest, the right as well as the privilege, enjoyed by another sector within the Maltese society, which sector is itself also a minority.” 

FKNK also claimed that “these extremists want to extinguish the life of a group of persons from a minority group, simply because they do not enjoy the same fortune themselves, or to maybe reach some personal ambition, that more often than not is a political or financial one”. 

FKNK went on to add that when spring hunting was suspended in the years 2008, 2009 and 2010, “some of the FKNK members went to the extremity of taking away their own lives”.

“Finally, the FKNK incites [sic] all Maltese and Gozitan hunters and trappers to stay united within the FKNK and to keep supporting the FKNK such that together, so united, this battle can also be overcome, also with the support of all those Maltese who believe in democracy instead of extremism and who believe in the safeguard of legal rights, privileges and interests of minority groups in the Maltese islands.”