Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar (FAA) has called on the Prime Minister and Members of Parliament to take a firm stand and vote against the attempt by “moneyed interests to completely hijack Malta’s planning process through Bills No. 133 and 134.” The NGO stated that the Bills are “anti-democratic and violate Malta’s Constitution.”

“The Government is obviously aware that it will unleash a monster which it cannot control,” said FAA. “Much like the Rationalisation exercise, which decades later is still used as an excuse to destroy communities, agricultural land and quality of life, all it takes is a single reform to do untold, irreversible damage.”

FAA said that the Labour Government had amended Article 9 of the Constitution of Malta to include an obligation for the State “to promote, nurture and support the right of action in favour of the environment.” These reforms would obliterate “the right of action in favour of the environment” in such a “blatant way that these bills are in clear breach of the spirit of the Constitution of Malta.”

FAA warned that “whenever more power is given to developers in Malta and Gozo, many developers not only interpret that power as a fundamental economic and personal right afterwards but abuse it further due to lack of enforcement and ease of sanctionings.”

It added that “over the decades, the workers and communities of Malta and Gozo have incrementally lost their right to a good quality of life, one amendment and reform after another, as the planning system has been eroded to favour development interests. While in the past this has been done incrementally, the threat posed by Bills No. 133 and 134 in their current form would be the most radical assault upon natural justice and ordinary people’s right.”

FAA said that “it would seem that recent eNGO victories through the courts such as FAA’s overturning of the Capitanerie permit at Gzira Gardens and that of the landmark Ramel Building at Balluta, has prompted this backlash.”

“Bills 133 and 134 drastically curtail the public’s ability to appeal abusive permits, and greatly limit judicial oversight by decreeing that Courts will no longer be able to directly revoke or amend planning permits.” FAA warned that “the reduction of citizens’ rights and the curtailing of the power of the judiciary are hallmarks of autocratic governments.”

“This is a wholesale violation of the EU’s Directive on Public Access to Environmental Information which is designed to protect the right of every person of present and future generations to live in an environment adequate to his or her health and well-being by ensuring public access to environmental information, fostering public participation in decision-making which affects the environment and extending the conditions of access to justice in environmental matters,” stated FAA.

The NGO highlighted the fact that “in 2024, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a landmark judgement in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland, explicitly ruled that individuals and associations must be granted real access to justice to challenge environmental failings by the state. By restricting standing, and curtailing judicial oversight, Bills No. 133 and 134, would place Malta in direct conflict with binding human rights standards.”

Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar said that it “warns Parliamentarians and policymakers that supporting this reform is not only undemocratic, but also a betrayal of working people, ordinary citizens, and their own families and children, as it would surrender the country to those who think that money can buy everything.”

Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar said it echoes Labour Party President Alex Sciberras, in “insisting that people, not just developers, should be heard.”

File photo: FAA

Permalink: Planning Reform: Anti-democratic Bills violate Malta’s Constitution – FAA