Ceremony 3
26 November 2008
Professor Eugene Buttigieg LL.D., LL.M. (Exon.), Ph.D. (Lond.)
Department of European & Comparative Law, Faculty of Laws
It is indeed an honour and a privilege to be asked to deliver the oration at today’s
ceremony and I would like to thank Senate for the invitation.
This is a great day for the students who will be earning their much deserved
degrees and I congratulate them and their families without whose support their
achievements would not have been possible. It is a celebration also for the university
and the country that these men and women, mostly in the prime of their youth, chose to
spend six years of their lives and in some instances, in the case of the Masters
graduands, even more, to the pursuit of knowledge and self-development.
Allow me to take this opportunity to share with you, as part of Malta’s new
generation of lawyers, a few ideas. First, I would like to stress the value of continuing
education for lawyers. Unfortunately, in Malta we do not have a formal system where
continuing legal education is provided for and attendance by practising lawyers made
obligatory and rewarded; lawyers, especially those who are well-established in the
profession, tend not to appreciate the importance of attending informative law
conferences. Such conferences help participants to keep abreast of legislative and
judicial developments in specialised branches of law and present legal practitioners with
the current academic debates that may inform future changes.
Following Malta’s accession to the EU, Community legislation and case law is
now of direct relevance to lawyers working in any field of law as it is part of Malta’s legal
system and applicable in the Maltese courts as any law enacted locally or any judgment
handed down by the local courts. It is thus essential for every Maltese lawyer to follow
developments in Brussels and Luxembourg apart from those in Malta.
The University’s European Documentation and Research Centre in conjunction
with the Department of European and Comparative Law and the Malta European Studies
Association has over the years organised several seminars and conferences on
European law themes and is working towards organising several others in the near
future. Indeed, the imminent launching of a national association for European Law
should see many more events of this kind in collaboration with similar associations in
other Member States. These activities complement other similar initiatives taken by the
Chamber of Advocates and private organisations in respect of Maltese law. I encourage
you to participate in these events as it is your duty to provide properly informed advice
and legal assistance to persons who seek your services. It is heartening to see that the
Chamber of Advocates in a consultative paper that it recently published entitled
‘Regulating the Legal Profession in the 21st Century’ is itself encouraging the
introduction of an obligatory continuing professional development scheme.
I mentioned the imminent formation of an association for European law. This will
be a specialist association of academics and legal practitioners committed to the study
and discussion of all aspects of European Community Law and will be affiliated to the
international Fédération Internationale pour le Droit Européen (FIDE). The success of
this association will however depend on the number of law graduates that join the
association and on the extent of their participation in the association’s activities. In
particular, one hopes that the association would be able to find enough committed
lawyers to serve as national rapporteurs in FIDE’s biennial congresses to prepare and
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present national reports on the application of European Union law in Malta in inter alia
the constitutional, administrative, civil, commercial and criminal law fields. This would be
an opportunity for Maltese lawyers to participate in research concerning the impact of
EU law on the Maltese legal and judicial system and to exchange views on the
application of Community law in Member States in an international forum in the presence
of Commission officials and the judges of the European Court.
This brings me to my next point. It is now more than four years since we joined
the European Union. Yet EU law seems to have had only a marginal impact on
proceedings before the Maltese courts. So far it seems that there has not been one
single preliminary reference to the European Court of Justice from the Maltese courts
and it appears that rarely is Community law the basis for an action or a plea of defence
or for the provision of remedies before our courts. It behoves all lawyers, especially the
younger generation of lawyers like you who unlike the elder generation have been
trained in European law in the course of their undergraduate and postgraduate studies,
to raise European law related pleas where the law confers rights and remedies on the
individual. Today the scope of European Community law extends to all fields of law from
commercial to civil to criminal law and so practising lawyers in any field of law should
ensure that in their advice and in litigation they invoke the rights and remedies that
Community law provides; lawyers in Malta today might not yet be fully exploiting the
legal and judicial protection that Community law provides to the ordinary citizen.
My third point is about the value of comparative law. Not many of you might be
interested in seeking an academic career but even in the daily practice of your
profession, comparative analysis is important. Our legal system has always been
influenced by foreign legal systems – in particular the civil law and common law systems
have helped to shape our current legal system – so that the comparative law approach
has always been important in the study and application of Maltese law. Now, however, it
has acquired an even greater importance. Accession to the European Union has meant
that most of our legislation today is not home grown but implements the legislation that
has been adopted in Brussels. For a proper evaluation of Maltese law, not only is an
understanding of the rationale and provisions of the source directive necessary and a
study of the European Court case law interpreting these provisions essential but it would
be useful for a fuller appreciation of the law that a comparative analysis of the legislation
of other EU Member States implementing the source directive and of the judgments of
their courts interpreting this legislation be undertaken. The globalization of world trade
and the trend towards greater harmonisation of laws has increased the virtues of
comparative law.
This comparative analysis will inevitably involve a study of both legal and
economic issues and this leads me to my favourite topic: law and economics.
Increasingly, law and economics are intermingling. For instance, today it is recognised
that knowledge of behavioural economics is important for the correct application of
consumer law and knowledge of industrial economics for the application of competition
law. Financial services law, corporate law, trade law, intellectual property law,
competition and state aid law all require lawyers to take into account economic realities
especially in a small market economy as ours before applying the legal provisions –
taking an excessively legalistic and formalistic approach to problems without considering
the economic factors and the economic impact of the application of the rules in these
fields will damage markets and ultimately the welfare of consumers. The Law Faculty
and the Department of Economics already offer jointly a Masters programme in
competition law and economics but maybe in future the respective faculties might
endeavour to extend the study of law and economics to other fields. In the exercise of
the legal profession, legal practitioners should appreciate the economic consequences
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of applying rigid rules just as they should be sensitive to the social and human
dimension.
Allow me finally to say a few words about this strange creature called ‘the
academic’. The recent dispute over the collective agreement for academics exposed a
sad and grossly misconceived popular perception of the academic’s contribution to
society. An academic has the responsibility of forming the future generations of
professionals, instilling in them the passion for the discipline they have chosen for their
future. The academic embarks on a life long journey of learning and discovery,
presenting this research in local and international fora and publishing this research
locally and abroad to help inform the public debate. Through this and through his
participation in international academic projects and networks in collaboration with
academics from other foreign institutions and universities he makes Malta visible on the
international scene and highlights the academic excellence of this university. He also
offers his expertise to assist industry and the public sector. This is not a rare breed at the
university but every faculty can boast of exemplary high calibre academics. Society
should acknowledge this contribution in concrete ways in order to attract more of these
talented and committed professionals to the university.
I have tried to keep this oration as short as possible as I’m sure you’re all very
impatiently looking forward to the solemn moment when you will receive your degrees
and to the unrestrained partying that will undoubtedly follow. Once again I would like to
congratulate all the graduands today while reminding the law graduates that they have a
duty towards society to exercise their profession with a strong commitment to serve and
a deep sense of integrity.
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