Engineers claim new rules risk ‘annihilating the very existence of professionals’

The Malta Association of Professional Engineers has filed court proceedings in an effort to prevent the tabling in Parliament of legal amendments which they warn would “annihilate” their profession.

This was the message contained in a judicial protest filed before the First Hall of the Civil Court against the Engineering Profession Board, which falls under the auspices of the Ministry for Transport, Infrastructure and Capital Projects.

The association, which is the formal representative of the engineering profession took the step of filing legal action against the Board in the wake of it proposing a long list of amendments to the Engineering Profession Act. The Board is claiming that these were the result of a consultation and discussion process “ongoing over the past years.”

But far from being an ongoing consultation process, the Malta Association of Professional Engineers (MAPE), claim that no discussions have taken place. The association said it had finally managed to obtain a copy of the proposed amendments which was circulated among its members and discussed at an extraordinary annual general meeting.

It was agreed that the proposed amendments not only failed to safeguard the best interests of the engineering profession but, if endorsed by Parliament, “would undermine and annihilate the very existence of professional engineers.”

MAPE said that an official statement issued by the Board through the Department of Information on 19 November, in which it was claimed that there were ongoing talks about the proposed amendments, was false.

There had been no consultation between the Board and the professional body, it said, much less a discussion of the legal amendments which it wants to clear through Parliament the end of the year.

Decrying the Board’s behaviour as abusive, MAPE called upon it to immediately begin a consultation process and to suspend the presentation of the amendment proposals to Parliament. 

Lawyer Michael Tanti-Dougall signed the judicial protest.