S.L. 234.51 Art. 2Interpretation.

(1) In these rules unless the context otherwise requires:

''the Act'' means the Merchant Shipping Act; "appropriate inspector" shall have the same meaning as assigned to it in article 154 of the Act; "armed robbery against ships" means any illegal act of violence or detention or any act of depredation, or threat thereof, other than an act of piracy, committed for private ends and directed against a ship or against persons or property on board such a ship, within a State’s internal waters, archipelagic waters and territorial sea, or any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act;

"competent authority", in relation to Malta, means the Registrar-General and, in relation to other States, means the national maritime administration maintained by those States; "Convention" means the Maritime Labour Convention signed in Geneva on the 7th February, 2006 including any amendment or Protocol related thereto as may from time to time be ratified, acceded to or accepted by the Government of Malta and other instruments, standards and specifications of a mandatory nature related thereto adopted or developed by the International Labour Organisation or in terms of rule 4;

"Council Directive 2009/13/EC" means Council Directive 2009/ 13/EC of 16 February 2009 implementing the Agreement concluded by the European Community Shipowners’ Associations

(ECSA) and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) on the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, and amending Directive 1999/63/EC; "inspector" means a person authorised by the competent authority or the maritime administration of another State to inspect the working and living conditions of seafarers in accordance with the Convention;

"medical practitioner" means a duly qualified medical practitioner;

''medical stores'' includes medicines, medical equipment and antidotes;

*see rule 1(2) of these Rules, as originally promulgated. "piracy" means the same as the meaning assigned to it in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982; "proper authority" means, if in Malta, any person appointed by the competent authority, or, if in a place outside Malta, a Maltese consular officer, or, if there is no such officer in that place, such officer as is authorised in that behalf by the Minister or other appropriate authority; "Registrar-General" shall have the same meaning as is assigned to it in the Act; "safe manning document" means a document prescribing the minimum safe manning considered necessary for the sufficient and efficient manning of the ship from the point of view of safety of life at sea and pollution prevention, issued, in the case of a Maltese ship by the Registrar-General, and in the case of any other ship, by or on behalf of the Government of the State whose flag the ship is entitled to fly;

"seafarer" means any person who is employed or engaged or works in any capacity on board a ship, to which these rules apply, but excluding persons providing non-scheduled or ancillary services to a ship to assist it in its maritime voyage such as, inter shore based engineers, bunker crew, pilots, members of the alia, Armed Forces of Malta, or a member of the Civil Protection Department of Malta; "shipowner" or "owner" means the owner of the ship or another organisation or person such as the manager, or the bareboat charterer, who has assumed the responsibility for the operation of the ship from the owner and who, on assuming such responsibility, has agreed to take over the duties and responsibilities imposed on shipowners in accordance with these rules;

"STCW Convention" means the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping signed in London on 7th July 1978.

(2) Unless otherwise defined in these rules or unless the context otherwise requires, words and expressions used in these rules shall have the same meaning assigned to them in the Convention.

(3) In the Convention, any reference to "recognised organisation" shall, for the purposes of these rules, with reference to Malta and where the context so requires, be construed as a reference to a surveyor of ships or an organisation or body of surveyors appointed in terms of article 367 of the Act, and duly authorised by the Registrar-General.

(4) These rules shall be read and construed together with the Convention and Council Directive 2009/13/EC.