S.L. 111.1 Art. 2Interpretation.

(1) In this Scheme the following expressions have the meanings hereby assigned to them respectively, that is to say -

the "Ordinance" means the Personal Injuries (Emergency

Provisions) Ordinance; "apprentice" means a person who has attained the age of fourteen years but has not attained the age of twenty-four years and who, not being a gainfully occupied person, is undergoing full time training for any trade, business, profession, office, employment or vocation;

"civil defence organization" means an organisation which is declared by article 3 of this Scheme to be a civil defence organisation for the purpose of the Ordinance and of this Scheme; "civil defence worker" in relation to an injury, means a person certified by a responsible officer of a civil defence organisation to have been a member of that organisation at the time when the injury was sustained;

"the Committee" means the Committee appointed by the President of Malta for the purposes of administering this Scheme;

"disablement" means loss of physical or mental capacity; "degree of disablement" in Part III means degree of disablement as assessed and certified under Article 5 of this Scheme; "dependent minor", in relation to a person who has sustained an injury means any minor, born at any time not later than three hundred days after the date (in this paragraph referred to as "the material date") on which that injury was sustained, who has not attained the age of fourteen years and who, if born before the material date, was at that date either residing with or being wholly or mainly maintained by the injured person, and who is -

(a) a legitimate minor of the injured person; or

(b) a minor of the injured person who was legitimated before the material date;

(c) where the injured person is a male person, a step-child whose mother was married to the injured person before the material date; or

(d) a minor adopted in terms of law before the material date.

Provided that a minor who -

(aa) had on the material date attained the age of fourteen years and was on that date a minor receiving full time instruction at a school; or

(bb) is, on the date when he attains the age of fourteen years, a minor receiving such instruction, may be treated, for the purpose of this paragraph, as a minor who has not attained the age of fourteen years until the date on which he ceases to be a minor receiving such instruction or the thirty-first day of July next following the day on which he attains the age of sixteen years, whichever is the earlier date;

"gainfully occupied person" means a person who is engaged in any trade, business, profession, office, employment or vocation and is wholly or substantially dependent thereon for a livelihood, or a person who, though temporarily unemployed, is normally so engaged and dependent;

"injury which may be compensated on the higher scale" means an injury which is -

(a) a war service injury sustained by a civil defence worker; or

(b) a war injury sustained by a gainfully occupied person;

"period of the present emergency" means the period beginning on the third day of September, 1939, and ending with such date as the President of Malta may proclaim to be the end of such emergency; "prescribe" means prescribe by the President of Malta by regulations made under the Ordinance for the purposes of this Scheme; "public funds" means monies provided by the Government of Malta, or by Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom; "qualifying injury", in relation to a person means an injury sustained by that person in respect of which an award under this Scheme may be made;

"qualifying injury", in relation to an award of an allowance to or in respect of the wife, or of a pension to the widow, of a person, means a qualifying injury sustained by that person after he was married to that wife or widow, and, in relation to an award of an allowance in respect of, or of a pension to, a dependent minor of a person, means a qualifying injury sustained by that person in relation to which that minor falls to be treated for the purposes of this Scheme as a dependent minor of that person;

"student" means a person who has attained the age of fourteen years but has not attained the age of twenty-four years and who is receiving full time instruction at a university, college, school or other educational establishment; "war injury" means a physical injury caused by-

(a) the discharge of any missile including liquids and gas; or

(b) the use of any weapon, explosive or other noxious thing; or

(c) the doing of any other injurious act; either by the enemy or in combating the enemy or in repelling an imagined attack by the enemy; or

(d) caused by the impact on any person or property of any enemy aircraft, or any aircraft belonging to Her Majesty or any allied power, or any part of, or anything dropped from, any such aircraft; "war service injury", in relation to a civil defence worker, means any physical injury which the Committee certifies that it is satisfied that it has arisen out of and in the course of the performance of his duties as a member of the civil defence organisation to which he belonged at the time when the injury was sustained and to have been either a war injury or an injury arising directly or indirectly from conditions caused by an enemy air raid or other attack and sustained in the performance of work in which the risk of injury was materially increased by the necessity to perform it either during or immediately after an enemy air raid or other attack.

(2) For the purposes of this Scheme a person shall be treated as being incapable of self-support only if he is suffering from physical or mental infirmity of a permanent or prolonged nature whereby he is rendered incapable of self-support.

(3) For the purposes of this Scheme, disablement caused by a qualifying injury or by any two or more qualifying injuries shall be treated as being serious and prolonged only if it is assessed and certified under article 5 of this Scheme to be of a degree of not less than twenty per cent, or if it could have been so assessed and certified but for any such direction as is mentioned in sub-article

(3) of that article.

(4) A person who is at any date prevented for any reason from wholly or mainly maintaining a minor or from contributing to a reasonable extent to the support of his wife may, if the Committee think fit having regard to the circumstances of the case, be treated for the purposes of this Scheme as if he were at that date wholly or mainly maintaining that minor or contributing to a reasonable extent to the support of his wife, as the case may be.