Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1522096
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 9 JUNE 2024 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA mvella@mediatoday.com.mt KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt FOR SALE QUAD BIKE BOMBARDIER 650CC (2006). My black and yellow beautiful almost immaculate, always serviced quad is, with a heavy heart for sale. She is licensed till October 2024 and road ready. It's now time for someone else to enjoy. Annual road is €259. Asking price is €4500. Call or WhatsApp on 79990807. THE Malta Union of Teachers is holding an extraor- dinary general meeting on 14 June to ask members to extend the council's term by six months. The council wants its term extended so that it can conclude talks and oversee the implementation of several pending work agreements. One of these agreements is the sectoral agreement for State and church school educators, which was met by criticism from educators when the union pre- sented it to its members. MUT was forced to post- pone the vote on the agreement. Earlier this week, the Education Ministry sent a personalised email to all educators in State schools explaining the benefits of the package agreed with the MUT. The sectoral agreement includes generous increases in allowances and progression in pay scales for most grades. However, the union faced flak from veteran teachers who are already in the highest pay scale possible since they did not benefit from scale progression. Subsequent talks, led to the introduction of a new allowance for this grade, however the package has not yet been put to a vote. But the union is also locked in a trade dispute at MCAST over stalled talks on a new agreement there. Industrial action ordered last month is still in force. The extraordinary general conference was called by MUT President Marco Bonnici and is motivated by the prevalent extraordinary circumstances, involving pending agreement negotiations and trade disputes. According to the notice to members, the EGM will discuss only one motion that was proposed unan- imously by the MUT council to extend its term in office by six months until December. "This is to enable the satisfactory conclusion of negotiations and subsequent implementation of the four main agreements, namely the state sectoral agreement, the Church collective agreement, the MCAST agreement and the ITS agreement," the council said. MUT paid-up members who want to attend the EGM must complete the registration form available on the MUT website by Wednesday at noon. MUT council seeks term extension to tackle pending agreements, disputes Members of the Malta Union of Teachers are being asked to extend the current council's term by six months to tackle unresolved agreements and disputes • Extraordinary general meeting called for 14 June FIAU refused referral to Constitutional Court turns down FIAU request to ask European Court of Justice whether EU law gives it power to impose multi-million fines on money laundering non-compliance THE Constitutional Court has turned down a request by the Maltese financial intelligence agency to petition the European Court of Justice for guidance on the interpretation of EU law in- side the Maltese courts. Malta's anti-money launder- ing watchdog, the FIAU, has been dealt dozens of court judgements by the superior courts which have declared its fines and sanctions policy to be "completely illegal" because supervised entities have no fair right of hearing. The FIAU is contesting a de- cision in which the courts ruled its €435,000 fine for Phoenix Payments was unconstitutional. But the Constitutional Court decreed there was need for an interpretation of EU Treaties for it to decide the FIAU's appeal. "The issue in this case is the ap- plicability and interpretation of Article 39 of the Constitution of Malta, given the choice made by the Maltese State," said the Constitutional Court, presided by Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti. Article 39 provides that every- one charged with a criminal of- fence must be given a fair trial by an 'independent and impar- tial tribunal established by law'. The FIAU, as a government agency, insists it is empowered to supervise compliance by persons subject to anti-money laundering laws, with the power to impose administrative penal- ties on subject persons. It insisted with the Consti- tutional Court that it is em- powered by a European Union Directive of 2015, which states that member states can lay down such rules as required for their competent authorities to impose sanctions. The FIAU in- sisted the Directive allows it to exercise its powers to sanction those in breach of money-laun- dering rules. The FIAU wanted the ECJ