Planning reform ‘dismantles rule of law,’ law professor warns

The government’s proposed planning reform will “dismantle the rule of law” and make illegal permits “unchallengeable”, law professor Kevin Aquilina has warned ahead of a national protest to be held on Saturday.

Speaking to Times of Malta, Aquilina said the controversial bills will be “legalising a continuous state of illegality” and removing safeguards designed to allow people to challenge illegal developments.

Aquilina took particular exception to a legal notice allowing owners to have their illegal developments regularised against a fine.

“The government is sending the message that everybody can violate the law with impunity, build whatever they want with no rules attached and cover their illegal monstrosities provided they pay a fine,” Aquilina said.

“The rule of law mandates that people abide by the law, not breach it,” he added.

Aquilina described the bills as crafted “maliciously” in a way that will ensure that residents, NGOs and local councils “will be dispossessed of all the remedies they currently enjoy” to challenge illegal permits.

“Citizen participation in our legal system will be nipped in the bud by removing the democratic element from the justice system,” Aquilina said.

This will be exacerbated by the removal of the courts’ powers to revoke illegal permits altogether, instead directing them back to the planning tribunal, he said.

Aquilina described this as “an affront to the courts’ independence”.

He also objected to provisions permitting the Planning Authority to change planning policies without parliamentary approval, warning that it will result in “unelected Planning Authority officers having more power than parliamentarians”.

'Tweaking them will solve absolutely nothing'

“Planning illegalities will be normalised, thus becoming the rule, not the exception,” Aquilina said. “The government wants to turn over its head the rule of law by legalising a continuous state of illegality.”

Aquilina echoed calls by activists to have the bills scrapped together, saying “the only way to stop this legal mess is by withdrawing the two bills and three legal notices in question”.

“Tweaking them will solve absolutely nothing,” he warned.

Aquilina is far from the only figure to have sounded a warning over the reforms, ever since they were first announced in July.

NGOs have banded together to call for the reforms to be scrapped, while Malta’s planning and environment commissioner has described several of its measures as unrealistic and “potentially oppressive”.

Planning Minister Clint Camilleri has since pledged to roll back some of the key elements of the bill, including a contentious clause that would have allowed the PA to deviate from existing planning laws.

Meanwhile, the government set up a working group to handle feedback received through a public consultation launched in early August, shortly after the bills were first tabled in parliament.