The police are instructed to issue a minimum of 10 traffic tickets per month, a police officer admitted under oath on Monday.
Quotas given to officers in other locations, such as St Julian’s, are higher, police officer Clive Mallia testified.
It is the first time that a police officer has confirmed the existence of quotas for traffic contraventions.
Mallia made the admission as he was testifying in the case against five people accused of assaulting him and a fellow officer in Ħamrun last month.
That altercation began when the two police officers issued a parking ticket to a car belonging to one of the accused.
“There’s nothing official,” he initially said when asked by defence lawyer Franco Debono whether officers were required to issue a set number of contraventions each month.
As laughter rippled through the courtroom, Magistrate Monica Vella intervened.
“Is there a quota? And if so, would you issue tickets nonetheless even if there’s nothing wrong?” she asked the witness.
At that point, Mallia acknowledged the existence of the unwritten rule. He said he had already exceeded his monthly quota when he booked the car belonging to his alleged assailant, Kurt Borg.
The existence – or lack thereof – of a quota-based system for traffic contraventions has been a hot-button topic for years.
Private firms that used to operate a community officer system – the so-called wardens – spent years vehemently denying the existence of any quota-based system.
But in 2015, then-junior minister Stefan Buontempo tacitly acknowledged the existence of a quota system when he announced that it was to be abolished following complaints.
In a 2016 report, then-LESA CEO Raymond Zammit wrote that the quota system was “a source of mockery and contempt” and described it as “daylight robbery”.
“The termination of the quota system served to liberate wardens from years of aggression and hostility which for years they had no choice but to kowtow to,” he added.
But officer Mallia’s testimony on Monday suggests a form of the quota system remains alive and kicking, at least within the police force.
Questions have been sent to the Malta Police Force.