Malta spent €200,000 in legal fees to defend finch trapping in two doomed court cases in European courts.
Malta was first taken to court by the European Commission almost a decade ago, after the newly elected Labour government reintroduced finch trapping in 2014.
The case was eventually decided in 2018, with the European Court of Justice declaring that Malta had violated its obligations under the European Wild Birds Directive by applying a derogation to allow the capture of seven species of wild finches.
By that point, Malta had spent a total of €67,428 in legal fees to defend the case, according to documents given to Times of Malta after a freedom of information request.
Malta found itself in hot water again just three years later, with the European Commission once again opening proceedings arguing that Malta was in breach of EU rules by allowing a controversial catch-and-release ‘study’.
This time, Malta roped in top EU lawyer Daniel Sarmiento to help defend the case. Sarmiento, a specialist in EU law, has formed part of the government’s legal team in other high-profile European cases.
According to a notice on The Malta Government Gazette, published in December 2023, Sarmiento was paid €111,000 for his work on the case between 2020 and February 2023. But Europe’s top court again ruled against Malta, finding that the trapping of finches for “research purposes” was unjustified and “does not establish a genuine research purpose”.
A freedom of information request filed by Times of Malta revealed that the government spent €130,267 on legal fees, bringing the total paid across both cases to just under €200,000, excluding VAT.
It is unclear whether this figure only includes lawyers’ expenses or also tallies up other court fees incurred throughout the proceedings.
Trapping season re-opened, despite court ruling
Malta’s bird trapping practices remain a bone of contention, with the government once again opening the bird trapping season in October, just weeks after the court’s damning verdict. The season is set to close on December 20.
Defending the decision to reopen the trapping season, the authorities said a new legal notice declaring the season open now included a “declaration” explaining why there are no satisfactory alternatives to study bird migration patterns.
Whether this explanation will once again raise the EU’s ire remains to be seen.