Perit Alan Saliba, the Commissioner for Environment and Planning from the Office of the Ombudsman, has conducted an investigation into the issue concerning third parties’ inability to contest regularisation permits issued by the Planning Authority before the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal.

While third parties are allowed to submit representations against regularisation applications under the Development Planning Act, the Tribunal Act does not grant them the right to appeal regularisation decisions. The Commissioner said that this legal discrepancy was confirmed in a 2022 Court of Appeal ruling.

The Commissioner deemed this situation “unjust,” highlighting that “third parties do not have the same rights as applicants when it comes to challenging regularisation decisions. In contrast, for development permissions, both applicants and third parties can submit appeals.”

To address this imbalance, the Commissioner recommended amendments to the Tribunal Act, ensuring that third parties can also appeal Planning Authority regularisation decisions, and called for these changes to be reflected in the relevant regulations.

The Commissioner said that following a “prolonged period without action from the responsible authority, the matter was escalated to the Prime Minister and later brought before the House of Representatives, in accordance with the Ombudsman Act.”

Permalink: Third-party appeals against regularisations, recommendations not implemented – Commissioner