The removal without warning of memorial plaques at the Mellieħa cemetery has upset family members but the authorities say they had no right to affix them and that the action was taken because urgent works were needed.

Last Sunday, Robert Borg visited the Mellieħa graveyard to light a candle to his deceased mother and aunts, only to find that all plaques that had adorned the wall – about 20 – had been taken down.

Can you just send people to remove memorials and throw them haphazardly on the ground without advising the owners?- Robert Borg

They were piled on the ground and some were broken in the process, he said.

The plaques had been hanging on the outside of a storeroom at Our Lady of Victories cemetery. The department for health regulation within the health ministry said they had to be removed because urgent repairs were required to the ceiling, which was posing a great danger.

It noted that all plaques were “installed without authorisation and should not have been there in the first place, apart from the damage they have caused to the walls”.

Paul Spiteri, higher environmental health practitioner within the department, said: “We would not have removed the plaques if it were not for these urgent repairs required.”

The plaques were left inside the cemetery and could be collected by the owners, he continued, adding that only three were damaged and that the workers had done their best to minimise any damages.

Plaques piled on the ground.

Apology requested

But Borg said he had affixed the plaque with the consent of the local funeral director and requested an apology for not being forewarned about the removal.

“Just because it is government property, can you just send people to remove memorials and throw them haphazardly on the ground without advising the owners,” he asked.

The family member took exception to the fact that no one was informed in advance and insisted the authorities had other channels, such as the parish priest and the local funeral director, who knew whom the plaques belonged to, to alert them about the removal.

A notice could also have been stuck on the wall a month before, he said.

“They would have found the plaques already removed, saved time and work and would not have hurt family members, while showing some respect to the dead,” Borg maintained.

He explained that no graves were available for sale in that cemetery so, like other Mellieħa residents who did not have one, he had bought a marble plaque and installed it on the wall “to have a place to say a prayer and light a candle”.

On entering that day, he noticed an empty wall, with all the memorials placed on the ground, resulting in some cracks in the marble and broken candle and flower holders.

He said the damage was probably due to the heavy weight of marble plaques piled on top of each other.

“The sight of the memory of my family discarded in that way shocked me,” he said, adding that his own plaque was at the back of the heap, with about another six resting on it.

“To get it out, I had to ask someone else to help me,” he said.

Some damage seems to have been caused to the plaques with their removal.

'Abuse of power'

Borg proceeded to check who was responsible and called the department to try and explain that his feelings had been hurt when he saw his mother’s memorial in a pile of marble on the floor.

When it came to matters that concerned the dead, a “certain sensitivity” was also required.

The action was “an abuse of power that has no place in today’s society”, he said, referred indirectly to the protests against the consistent ‘clean-ups’ of slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s memorial in Valletta.

Meanwhile, Spiteri said a tender has been adjudicated and works to repair the storeroom would start soon to replace the ceiling and upper part and restore the entrance gate.

Going forward, no plaques will be allowed to be stuck on the walls of the cemetery, he clarified, adding that family members could always place marble plaques on top of their graves without any authorisation.

Nationalist Party whip - and former Mellieħa mayor - Robert Cutajar said on Saturday morning that he has filed three parliamentary questions seeking more information about the removed plaques and works at a nearby cemetery.