Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1497281
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 16 APRIL 2023 OPINION 11 anyway - ever since this year's spring Turtle Dove migration even began: 'handling dead birds'.... you know: just like the FKNK reported Birdlife to the police for doing, this week: even if those 'criminal' BLM officials were actually trying to draw attention to a very real 'wildlife crime', that had been only just been committed (and I'll give you a hint: members of Birdlife Malta do not feature very prominently, in the list of 'usual suspects'.) But OK, Ok: I know what some of you are probably thinking right now. "Hang on a second: didn't you yourself (that is, 'me, myself') just write - only a few sentences further up - that it will be 'perfectly le- gal' to shoot Turtle Dove, once the season officially opens to- morrow? And if so: doesn't that also imply that Maltese hunters might actually have a point, when they argue – or so it seems, anyway - that 'handling dead birds' is only considered 'illegal', in this country... inso- far as it actually infringes any existing laws and regulations, as mandated by the govern- ment of Malta?" And, well... yes, I suppose. There certainly is a degree of logic, to that particular argu- ment; except that - how can I even put this? – it just so happens to be the exact same type of logic, that underpinned Birdlife Malta's entire 'sym- bolic' protest in the first place! (And – more pertinently still – its court-action for a war- rant of prohibitory injunction against this year's Spring hunt- ing season: specifically, on the grounds that... well, what do you know? It 'infringes existing laws and regulations'! Fancy that...). Meanwhile - just in case you think I'm making this part up, too - this is how the Europe- an Commission's 'Habitats Committee' put it, when it met to discuss this very issue last month: "in view of the con- tinuing declining trend of the Turtle Dove population in the Central-Eastern flyway, the Commission considers that [Malta's spring hunting dero- gation] is contrary to the Birds Directive, and the efforts by the Commission and the Task Force to recover this species across all EU Member States." Not only that: but this year's derogation is already subject to ongoing EU infringement pro- ceedings, even as we speak; and if the season goes on to actually open tomorrow, as originally planned... the next step will al- most certainly be a case against Malta in the European Court of Justice. Naturally, I wouldn't dare predict the actual outcome of any such eventuality, from now... just as I will not presume to dictate how Mr Justice Gio- vanni Grixti should adjudicate the local case, in a verdict that is also expected to come out to- morrow. One thing I CAN safely say, however, is that: this is the sec- ond time, in as many years, that Birdlife Malta has resorted to the same type of legal action, to prevent the Spring Turtle Dove season from opening... .. and while last year's case was eventually thrown out on a mere technicality – specifi- cally, because it had been filed AFTER the legal notice was already in force (leaving the courts powerless to overturn it) – well, it seems that Birdlife Malta was careful not to repeat the same mistake, this time round. The bottom line is that – pro- vided, of course, that no other 'technicality' crops up in the meantime – the law-courts will now have to assess this case on its purely LEGAL merits, for a change. In a nutshell, Judge Grix- ti must now decide whether Malta's government actually 'broke European law', by open- ly defying a Directive that very explicitly precludes 'hunting in Spring' (and especially, by applying a derogation - or pre- tending to, anyway - that the Commission itself has already made abundantly clear is IL- LEGAL, in the case of endan- gered species such as the Tur- tle Dove...) And by the same token: this also means that the proponents of Malta's spring hunting sea- son, for that particular species of bird – namely: government, and the FKNK – must likewise now come up with 'LEGAL' re- sponses, to these (and other) arguments... ... and if the best the FKNK could come up with, so far, is to argue that: "Other people should be ARRESTED, for do- ing precisely what we ourselves will be doing – legally, this time - from next Monday, on- wards..." Well, what I can say? I can't wait to hear what they're going to come up with next. Yes, the federation is quite right to accuse Birdlife Malta of 'attempting to influence the law-courts', in a case which was scheduled to commence that same day... and which, after all, BLM had filed itself: with the specific aim of overturning what it (quite rightly) regards as a 'flagrant breach of local and international law' At a press conference in front of Castille, BirdLife Malta CEO Mark Sultana held up an illegally-shot turtle-dove