The Court of Appeals has nullified a decision by the Chamber of Architects (KTP) to temporarily suspend the warrants of six architects who defied one of their directives.
In a judgment issued on Wednesday the appeals court, presided over by Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti, Judge Joseph Micallef and Judge Tonio Mallia said the KTP was not in the right when it retaliated against architects Carmel Cacopardo, Marvienne Camilleri, Edward Scerri, David Sultana, Anthony Galea and Conrad Thake by suspending their warrants.
This was done after they did not abide by a directive that ordered architects not to bid on a particular tender issued by the commissioner for revenue.
The issue stems back to the tender, issued in 2022, seeking professional services to provide valuations of various properties.
The conditions of this tender specified that successful bidders would be remunerated at a price capped at €25 excluding VAT per report generated or every time the architect was required to represent the department in front of a court or a tribunal.
The KTP found these terms to be unacceptable and instructed all architects not to submit bids on this tender.
Issue stems back to the tender, issued in 2022, seeking professional services to provide valuations of various properties
“These are unacceptable terms, which undermine the scope of the due diligence and research necessary for the preparation of a valuation report, as well as underestimate the associated liabilities,” the KTP said in its directive, which was issued on August 8, 2022, three days after the tender was published.
It added that failure to abide by this instruction would result in disciplinary action.
A number of architects decided to ignore this directive and submitted their bid anyway, after which the KTP decided it would institute disciplinary proceedings against them, resulting in a three-month suspension of their professional warrants. It added that it would reduce the penalty to an admonition if the architects decided to bring themselves in line with the directive.
However, Cacopardo, Camilleri, Scerri, Sultana, Galea and Thake decided to contest that decision with the courts, opening a case against architect Andre Pizzuto in his capacity as KTP president.
In the judgment, the court found the KTP had not acted lawfully and did not abide with the principles of natural justice when it failed to provide the architects with proper notice of the disciplinary action being brought against them. It also found the KTP did not provide an adequate opportunity for them to defend themselves.
In light of this, the court decided to revoke the KTP’s decision against the six architects and declared it null.