Open letter to all Members of Parliament

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Open letter to all Members of Parliament The spring hunting referendum According to published EU statistics more than 2 to 3,000,000 turtle dove and just over 4,000,000 quail are hunted in seven EU states each autumn. The fact that Maltese hunters do not have the privilege to shoot any in autumn due to bird migration peculiarities has been recognized by the European Court of Justice that noted hunters “capture only an inconsiderable number of birds” and subsequently ruled derogation for spring hunting as being legally possible. This derogation permits the limited and strictly supervised shooting of 16,000 of these birds during a very short period in spring and is but one of several derogations applied in other EU states for shooting birds in spring that is in line with EU directives. This legal solution is opposed by Birdlife Malta who together with its coalition partners, having no other legal option to ban spring hunting, has incited the anti hunting Maltese public to go for a referendum to ban this practice. It is not at all surprising; given the bad publicity Birdlife have given hunting over the years, that 10% of the voting population who were always opposed to hunting has signed the referendum petition. Hunters, though numbering around 13,000 are a minority and with the support of other minorities are petitioning to stop this discrimination against minorities. The referendum petition has struggled to gather 40,000 signatures within 8 months. A media report states that the petition opposing it has collected twice the number in half the time with little effort and signatures are still being collected. This clearly shows that a large sector of the Maltese public sees right through the vile opportunism of Birdlife Malta who lobbies for a ban on legal hunting using totally unrelated illegal incidents to garner support and is sick and tired of their deceit and damaging publicity. It also proves their objection to a sector of society intent on banning spring hunting (a minority activity) at all costs from abusing our democratic processes in order to reach their abolitionist aims. The result of this referendum if ever it is held will determine the credibility of Birdlife Malta and the coalition members who claim to have wide public support. It will definitely not deter the illegal element that has no respect for law and order and above all it would exemplify the inadequacy of our referendum laws whereby if indoctrinated, the signatures of 10% of the voting population collected over an indefinite period of time can repeal any law passed by any government elected by at least 50%+1 of the voting population. With a spring hunting referendum petition being considered and one intent on banning civil unions in the pipeline, our politicians in parliament had better take note of this precarious situation. Even more so considering the involvement of a failed political party, that never exceeded 1.8% of votes throughout its existence, is intent on abusing our referendum laws to satisfy its abolitionist ideals and those of its newly acquired partners by repealing a law that regulates a legal activity endorsed by both democratically elected political parties.