Maltese laws must be reformed to ensure that ex-convicts who reform themselves are not subsequently "broken" by new criminal proceedings many years after the crimes were committed, Nationalist MP Mark Anthony Sammut said on Wednesday.

Sammut, who was speaking in parliament during the budget debate, recounted how he recently go to know ‘Brian’, an engineer who had created a software system for photovoltaic panels.

Brian had served time for drug-related crime but reformed himself and eventually graduated as an engineer. On leaving prison he started working, married and had two children.

Yet a short time later, he was sent back to prison over another crime he had committed more than a decade previously.

On being released, he started the process of reintegrating himself into society once more, but was now facing fresh proceedings in another old case.

Sammut said he was reiterating remarks also made in another sitting by Labour MP Glen Bedingfield that Malta was sending the wrong message to reformed criminals.

One constantly heard about criminals being given another chance and being supported to reform themselves. But that message was being contradicted here.

It was wrong, he said, that the Attorney General had decided to arraign this man three times, when he could faced the charges combined.

He was not saying that those who broke the law should not pay for their crimes, but justice needed to be served in a reasonable time.

This man, reformed years ago, had to explain to his children aged around 10 that he was going to prison and they would be separated. Their question was: ‘Why is daddy going to prison, he is not a bad man'.

The system, Sammut insisted, should not ‘break’ such people but should support them.

He said he was not blaming the courts, who had to follow the laws, or the prisons, who had helped people like 'Brian'.

But this country needed to address circumstances such as this because they were one of the reasons why the country had the highest rate of recidivists in Europe at 70%.