Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1547021
8 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 7 OCTOBER 2026 NEWS NOTICE OF INTENTION Notice is hereby given that Sennette Lam, trading as Flash Talent, intends to apply to the Director of the Department for Industrial and Employment Relations (DIER) for a licence to operate an Employment Agency providing Recruitment Services from the following premises: SOHO Office Space, Punchbowl Centre Elia Zammit Street St Julian's, STJ 3154 Malta The proposed activity of the employment agency will consist of the provision of recruitment services, including bringing together and matching persons seeking employment with employment opportunities. This notice is being published in connection with the intended application for an Employment Agency Licence. Sennette Lam - Trading as Flash Talent Indiscriminate lifelong cab driver ban breaches human rights, judge rules A former cab driver permanent- ly barred from working behind the wheel because of a 2018 prostitution-related conviction has won a constitutional case against the state. In its ruling, the court called on lawmakers to overhaul the rules that shut him out for life from holding a cab driving licence. In a judgment handed down on Monday, Judge Rachel Montebel- lo found that the regulations gov- erning the licence of light passen- ger vehicles had breached Carmel Schembri's right to private life under the European Convention of Human Rights. The court ordered that the nec- essary legislative amendments be made so that Transport Malta must weigh up each applicant's personal circumstances rather than turning them away auto- matically. It directed that a copy of the judgment be sent to the Speaker of the House once it be- comes final. A door closed for good Schembri was issued a driver's tag in May 2016 and went on to work as a driver with Bolt. How- ever, when the permit came up for renewal in 2021, Transport Malta turned him down. The reason was a conviction from November 2018. The man had admitted to living off the earnings of prostitution, allowing premises to be used for prosti- tution, and using three massage parlours, in St Paul's Bay, Ħam- run and Luqa, for purposes other than those they were licensed for. He was handed a 14-month prison term, suspended for four years, and fined €1,500. Under Regulation 9 of the Light Passenger Vehicle Services Reg- ulations, those offences mean a person can never be considered of "good repute and good con- duct", however much time pass- es, and however fully they have turned their life around. Schembri appealed to the Ad- ministrative Review Tribunal, but it dismissed his case in April 2022. The tribunal said the law "ties the hands" of the authority and left no room for discretion, how- ever sympathetic the applicant's situation might be. Schembri had argued that the unfairness was starker still when set against the Conduct Certifi- cates Ordinance. Under that law, a conviction eventually drops off a person's conduct certificate af- ter a set period, in recognition that people deserve a second chance. Yet no matter how many years go by, he said, he can never again hold a driver's permit. 'The world fell on me' Schembri said the decision had upended his life. He had cooper- ated with the police during the criminal investigation, believed he had put his past behind him, and had invested tens of thou- sands of euros into a new car to work with Bolt. "I felt the world fall on me," he told the court. He explained that his 23-year-old daughter has a disability and cannot work, and that he is the one who supports her. He now works as a delivery man, earning about €300 a week. His wife said in an affidavit that he had become "like a different person". State points to abuse by drivers The State Advocate argued that the rule was simply a "fit and proper" test. In the past, it said, some drivers had abused passen- gers in their care, including chil- dren. Someone convicted of prostitu- tion-related offences, which are classified among sexual offences, could not be considered suitable to carry passengers, especially minors. The court said that the ban did serve a legitimate aim, namely public safety. It agreed that the authority was right to want driv- ers who carry lone passengers to be people the public can trust. But it held that a ban "so ex- treme" was neither necessary in a democratic society nor propor- tionate. The judge pointed out that the regulation is not equally strict with every serious offender. Someone jailed for an offence involving violence against anoth- er person is barred only for a set period after release, calculated on the length of the sentence. That period is three months for sentences of six months to two years, and a quarter of the sen- tence for longer terms. After that, they can be deemed of good re- pute again. No such way back exists for prostitution offences. The court said this distinction between crimes, "all of them serious", did not appear to be objectively jus- tified. A person convicted decades ago, who has never again crossed the law, stays "branded for life", even where the offence had nothing to do with carrying passengers. Meanwhile, a violent offender may in time be trusted to carry passengers "without risk". A preventive measure aimed at a danger that is "merely spec- ulative", the judge wrote, cannot meet a pressing social need un- less the reality and degree of the risk are established through a personalised examination. Otherwise, she said, it amounts to arbitrary interference in a per- son's private life, and a lack of proportionality between protect- ing public safety and a man's in- terest in earning a living from the work he had always done. The authority, the court said, should be able to consider fac- tors such as how much time has passed since the conviction, the nature of the sentence, any later offending, and the degree of re- habilitation. Any such decision must also be open to review by an independent body. Modest compensation The court turned down Schem- bri's claim for lost earnings. It reasoned that, even if the discre- tionary assessment was in place, there was no guarantee his ap- plication would have been ap- proved. It awarded him €2,000 in moral damages. His separate complaint under Article 32 of the Constitution was thrown out, as that article cannot be enforced on its own. Costs were borne by the State Advocate. Lawyer Jurgen Micallef ap- peared for Schembri. Lawyer James d'Agostino appeared for the State Advocate's Office. ĦALEY XUEREB hxuereb@mediatoday.com.mt Transport Malta refused to renew a cab driver's licence based on rules that the Constitutional Court has ruled breached a person's human rights