Employers’ lobby hits out at ‘extremist gay and feminist groups’

MEA vice-president says ‘fringes’ should ‘stop throwing their weight about’

Employers are worried that “extremist members of gay and feminist lobby groups” are pressing for laws that would impinge on the principle of presumption of innocence.

In a Talking Point published on Monday, the vice president of the Malta Employers’ Association, Arthur Muscat, refers to two Bills, one dealing with equality and the other proposing the setting up of a human rights and equality commission, that were first presented in the beginning of 2016 but never enacted. The MEA has now been informed both will be proposed again, “presumably with some changes”, Mr Muscat says.

TALKING POINT: Here we go again

Employers, he insists, continue to resist the concept of the “reversal of the burden of proof” principle, whereby, in cases involving discrimination and equality, the presumed offender (the employer) is a priori to be deemed guilty and has to prove his/her innocence.

All “should wake up to the danger of laws, frivolously promulgated, without much thought to legality and repercussions and which will give rise to abuse of power, vexation and persecution”, he says.

“There is a spreading feeling among the public that certain people, residing in extreme fringes of particular lobbies, are overstepping a limit. Such people must bring their absurd sense of outrage under control and stop threateningly throwing their weight about,” Mr Muscat concludes.