An amendment to the Animal Welfare Act will soon address a lacuna in the law whereby the keeping of wild and dangerous animals is not properly regulated. Sources at the Resources Ministry confirmed that this amendment will soon be proposed in Parliament and the Times links this amendment to the finding of the Bengal Tiger earlier this summer.
Interestingly the business of government also includes the occasional filling of lacunae in the law. By their very nature, laws can never be perfect and all encompassing so the occasional touching up of a law in order to cover new or unprecedented situations is normal run off the mill stuff. It does become worrying however when the lacuna-filling trend almost becomes the norm and the government is seen to be unable to come up with a proper programme of legislation that coherently adapts to the demands and necessities of modern times.
Hunting, fireworks, building permits, tax collection and now dangerous animals. The list is getting too long for comfort. What it does show is an inability to engage with social forces who could provide early warning lights to such problems – or even worse an inability to decide which of these warning lights should be given the necessary weight. The problem with governance by opinion poll is that in a country of “a hundred persons with a hundred opinions” you risk ending with contradictory policies. We cannot forget the verted interests of certain “lobby groups” or in some cases (rich) “lobby persons” who might distort the perception of public opinion to the extent of engendering either inactivity or ill-advised activity from the part of the administration.
The state of the administration and government is pretty clear with the knee-jerk policies. What is even more worrying is that the opposition shows no sign of being different. There’s no Nick Clegg in Maltese politics – no new, different programme that is working on the new face of the economy and new social requirements all of which are wrapped within the underlying framework of the priorities of environmental considerations.
What we (k)need is a liberal democrat alternative. What we have is the jerks and their reactions. And I am not apologising for the ludicrous pun.
