Cap. 454 Art. 2Interpretation.

In this Act unless the context otherwise requires -

"Authority" means the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs

Authority as established by the Malta Competition and Consumer

Affairs Authority Act;

"calibration" refers to all the operations for the purpose of determining the values of errors of a measuring instrument;

"container" means a container in which goods are exposed, packed, offered for sale or sold, including, in particular, a bag, case, carton, bottle, glass, box, can, envelope, net, sack or wrapper, whether or not such wrapper fully encloses its contents; "conformity assessment procedures" has the meaning assigned to it by article 8; "Court" means the Court of Magistrates sitting as a court of criminal judicature; "Director General" means the person appointed as Director General (Standards and Metrology) by article 21 of the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority Act;

"functions" includes powers and duties; "goods" means anything which may be the subject of trade or manufacture; "inspector" means a person authorised or appointed under article 5 to be an inspector for the purposes of this Act; "Institute" means the Standards and Metrology Institute as established by article 21 of the Malta Competition and Consumer

Affairs Authority Act; "legal metrology" means that part of metrology which deals with units of measurement, methods of measurement and of measuring instruments in relation to the mandatory technical and legal requirements which have the object of ensuring the appropriate accuracy of measurements; "measurement standard" means a measuring instrument intended to define, to represent physically, to conserve or to reproduce the unit of measurement of a quantity, or a multiple or sub-multiple of that unit in order to transmit it to other measuring instruments by comparison; "measuring" means the act or process of appraising, assessing, calculating, calibrating, computing, estimating, evaluating or gauging of length, volume, weight or magnitude, and "measurement" shall be construed accordingly;

"measuring instrument" means a device intended to be used to make measurements, alone or in conjunction with a supplementary device or devices; "Metrology" is the field of knowledge concerned with measurement, the principal fields of which are: units of measurement and their measurement standards, measurements and measuring instruments;

"Minister" means the Minister responsible for standards and metrology and includes, to the extent of the authority given, any person authorised by the Minister to act in that behalf for any purpose of this Act; "ordinary measuring instrument" means a measuring instrument intended for ordinary use but not for the verification of other measuring instruments;

"periodical verification" means a verification of a measuring instrument, not being an initial verification, which is carried out periodically, at such intervals and according to such procedures as may be established by the Institute; "pre-package" means a product which has been placed in a container of whatever nature without the purchaser being present and where the quantity of the product contained in the package has a pre-determined value and cannot be altered without the package either being opened or undergoing a modification; "prescribed" means prescribed by regulations made under this Act; "prescribed purpose" refers to any of the purposes falling within the terms of article 7(1); "sell" includes offer, expose, advertise or keep for sale, and to supply by way of or for the purpose of consumption, and similar or related words shall be construed accordingly;

"SI System" means the International System of Units, "SI", namely, the coherent system of units adopted and recommended by the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures (Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures - CGPM) in 1960, and as may be revised from time to time; applying to a measuring instrument the marks indicating that it conforms to the requirements of verification; "type approval" means the examination, including testing in accordance with international practices, and approval of a particular design or pattern of measuring instrument to show that it is suitable for use for a prescribed purpose and is capable of achieving the accuracies required; "unit verification" means the examination of a measuring instrument, generally of a unique design and intended for a specific application, to establish that it satisfies legal metrological requirements;

"user" means the person or organisation responsible for the use of the measuring instrument for the purposes of this Act;

"verification" means all the operations carried out by the Institute, or by verifiers on its behalf, having the object of ascertaining and confirming that the measuring instrument entirely satisfies the requirements of this Act in respect of verification; "verification mark" means a mark applied to a measuring instrument certifying that the verification of the measuring instrument was carried out with satisfactory results;

"verifier" means a person authorised or appointed under article 5 to carry out verification within the meaning and for the purposes of this Act.