Are we going to continue to accept daylight robbery?

The legal notice concerning the use of agricultural land that is very much in the news is a red line that the present government is crossing. It constitutes expropriation of agricultural land from its rightful owners without compensation when and if for any reason this land fails to be registered with a newly-set-up authority of non-elected officials.

What this amounts to is granting a small, select group of individuals, likely associates of the current government and possibly linked to powerful development interests, the right to appropriate land from its rightful owners.

This authority will be entitled to simply take away the sacrosanct right of ownership which normally includes the right to do as one wishes with one’s own property.

Owners have, ever since the right of ownership was recognised with the start of civilisation, been protected by the law.

Civil structures of the state have intervened throughout history in the name of civil defence, transportation and food production to oblige certain owners to utilise their property in certain ways such as to till and plant their fields, to keep order in their forests, to build or not to build upon land, or to build with certain limitations.

The public good does demand that owners follow rules and could be restricted in their rights as owners.

Governments can also utilise their right to expropriate some lands when the public use for infrastructure as roads, bridges, water culverts and airports demand this but, in such cases, full compensation of the proper market value of the land has to be paid by the expropriator.

This present legal notice does seem to have a public good as a foundation, namely the interests of the nation to produce as much food from all the available arable land and, as such, landowners may be obliged to cultivate their arable land and not let it lie idle for no purpose.

However, this law was not passed through parliament in the usual manner; instead, it was introduced by the agriculture minister and quietly laid before parliament, thereby becoming law.

It forces all owners to register their land within a given time. If they fail to do so, their land can be taken away without compensation and even given to some other person freely by the authority.

Moreover, even if registered, the land can also be taken away if it is not being cultivated as farmland and no compensation is granted. It then can be given to another person to possess and to cultivate, presumably.

This law reminds us of the ‘good’ old times of Dom Mintoff and Lorry Sant- John Vassallo

As ever with the Malta Development Association and this government, in cahoots with one another, one can never be sure that this is the ‘real’ intention.

To use an agricultural metaphor, is this another way to “make hay while the sun shines?”

Apart from probably being unconstitutional, this law reminds those of us who are a bit older of the ‘good’ old times of Dom Mintoff and Lorry Sant when property was forcibly taken by the then government without compensation and nationalised for the ‘Iżra u Rabbi’ workers’ corps of unemployed people placed in uniforms.

Mintoff did lots of bad things but when he stepped on one fundamental matter, the right of parents to send their children to a school of their choice, especially Catholic schools, and tried to forbid these, he had stepped too far and the people rose against him and took to the streets.

This legal notice is a very similar one in its fundamental nature. The Robert Abela government wants to take away the right to property which Maltese people will die for if necessary.

This is a Rubicon that Abela should not have crossed. Property, and the right to use it as one sees fit, represents the ultimate freedom cherished by Maltese and Gozitan landowners, whether for villeġġjatura, for shooting or trapping, or for fencing off remote areas to produce their beloved fireworks. This law wants to take away this right.

To date, it is only agricultural land that is targeted and we can guess who the friendly Labour voters are who have been promised the land belonging to known Nationalist voters or to non-voters in exchange for their vote at the next election.

The next step in the developers’ wish list will be to issue a legal notice, with the same effect of taking away to give to friends, on the housing market. All empty houses or houses that are too big for sole residents, especially the aged, will be targeted to be given away without compensation to building contractors and developers to convert into flats for first-time buyers, into hotels or Airbnb apartments, free of charge.

Do not trust the present government. We must protest. Fight this robbery and destruction of the right to private property.

There are other ways to ensure that agricultural land is properly utilised by its rightful owners. 

John Vassallo is a former ambassador to the EU.