Acts of Parliament and Legal Notices on CD

Acts passed by parliament in 2003 and legal notices issued in the same year are to be made available on CD as from next month.

So far, paper-bound volumes of the printed version were published annually around April. Taking last year's publications as an example, they consisted of no fewer than five books containing 21 Acts covering 2,651 pages and costing Lm12, together, and a set of 11 books comprising 435 legal notices, totalling 6,436 pages and costing Lm22. In CD format, all main and subsidiary legislation will now be on sale earlier and cheaper.

Contacted yesterday, the director at the Department of Information, Emanuel Abela said: "In recent years, the Department of Information has been increasingly exploiting the electronic medium to disseminate government information, such as employment opportunities in the public sector, calls for tenders, scholarship announcements and various other notices of general interest.

"Last December, the department stepped up its services by publishing, online and in real time, the entire contents of each issue of the Malta Government Gazette. However, though making full use of its website (www.doi.gov.mt), the department had so far not explored the potentiality of the compact disc. Now, I feel the time is ripe to move on in this direction."

He said that as a start, the department decided to launch two compact discs containing all the laws and legal notices published in 2003. It planned to put the CDs, produced in-house, on sale in the beginning of next month.

"We hope they will be well received by the public as has been the case with the Gazette Online," Mr Abela said.

The first CD covers 19 parliamentary Acts and the second contains 448 legal notices. They will sell at Lm10 and any one CD may be bought separately for Lm5.

As a pre-launch offer, those who book both CDs by the end of January will get them for Lm7. Payment may be made to the Director of Information, 3, Castile Place, Valletta.

Further information may be obtained by calling freephone 153 or from info@gov.mt.