Environment matters

The Mepa draft Bill appears so far to have garnered a generally cautiously positive reaction from various quarters.

Notable exception so far is the Labour Party who, true to their name, are labouring to come up with a position. We promised a new Bill by the end of the year. We delivered. They promised to publish their position on the Mepa reform months ago. All we heard was the sound of silence. No official position has been forthcoming from my neighbours in Ħamrun.

They have made noises that they are fundamentally against what is being proposed in the Bill because they prefer to have two separate authorities, one for environment and one for planning, battling it out. While appreciating that there are arguments in this favour overseas - where environment is managed on a national basis, with planning and development regulated on a regional or local basis - in Malta, planning and development are regulated on a national basis and not on a regional basis.

Therefore, having separate authorities would not necessarily serve to ease the inescapable tension between planning and development. It is our opinion that keeping the two sides away will only serve to increase the tension and waste precious resources. We want development and environment to work hand in hand and resolve the tension at the earliest stages of both the application process and the policy-making process. As Martin Scicluna aptly put it a few weeks ago, planning and environment are different sides of the same coin.

Any shortcomings we might have had in the past on the environment front are probably a result of lack of resources. This is being addressed. The government has pledged to strengthen the resources within the Environment Protection Department. Work has already started to this end.

Robert Musumeci raised some personal considerations on some aspects of the proposed Bill. He referred to the provision whereby Mepa can revoke a permit that was approved as a result of an error made either by Mepa or the applicant during the application process. This provision exists in the current law and is being retained. We do not feel there is any legal or moral justification to remove it.

As to whether we are contemplating transitory clauses to ensure a smooth handling of applications during the switch from the old to the new system, article 97 of the Bill enables the minister to repeal the provisions of the Development Planning Act and the Environment Protection Act through notices in the Government Gazette. This allows for a gradual phasing in of the provisions to ensure a smooth transition. Furthermore, we have extended the term of office of the Development Control Commission and the Appeals Board to enable them to process and determine pending applications.

Transition phases in such reform processes are never an easy task to handle. But we are committed to administer this change in a manner that ascertains equality of treatment between "old" and "new" applications. The transition and applicability of a new policy has to be regulated by that policy and not by this parent Act. This again is normally done through transition clauses. The cardinal rule, confirmed also by numerous decisions of the Court of Appeal, remains that an application should be determined in accordance with the policies in force at the time of determination not the policies in place at the time of application.

The question of what meetings should be allowed during the application process is being addressed through article 45 of the Bill, which obliges the board or commission to register any consultations that it makes. Furthermore, we shall soon be publishing a guide of procedures that will include clear guidelines of what meetings are allowed and how these should be held. All this is being done in the interest of transparency and fair treatment.

The legal notices governing the procedures on applications are in the process of being finalised. These will be the subject of a consultation process before coming into force. These cannot come into force until the actual Bill is approved, not the other way round.

A suggestion was made to introduce the doctrine of precedence. This doctrine is not applicable in the Maltese judicial system, let alone in a development planning system. Nonetheless, the authority intends to build on previous decisions with a view of highlighting the merits and demerits of such decisions. There is no doubt that the members of the new commissions and tribunal will be further exposed to these decisions and other material aspects through induction training, which will be made available to such members.

The Bill will very shortly be debated in Parliament. I consider this as the crucial final stage of the consultation process. We should all take note of what will be said because, after all, what we will be discussing is the future of our environment.

Dr de Marco is Parliamentary Secretary for tourism and is responsible for Mepa reform.