Hunters on Sunday insisted that they were not calling for a removal of the right to hold referenda but for adequate changes to the law.

On Saturday, 13 civil society groups banded together to oppose a request by hunters to legally protect them from ever facing another spring hunting referendum. 

The action followed a petition to the President by the hunters’ lobby earlier in the week calling for the Referenda Act to be amended to prevent voters from being able to trigger a referendum by collecting the signatures of 10 per cent of eligible voters.

The hunters’ federation, FKNK, said on Sunday that while spring hunting in the referendum had been opposed by  43 entitites and personalities, Birdlife only managed to garner the support of another 12 entities for its action on Saturday.

FKNK said the 2015 referendum, when Malta voted to continue spring hunting, had cost the people €6 million and hunters came out the winners.

Civil Society had also expressed its belief that the way through which an abrogative referendum was called was not fair through the biggest petition ever collected in Maltese history and presented to Parliament by the FKNK in 2014. A total of 104,293 adult Maltese and Gozitan citizens had signed the petition.

The 2015 referendum was automatically triggered after environmental groups gathered 45,000 signatures requesting a ban.

BirdLife Malta has not ruled out calling for another such referendum in the future.