Should the ‘Cinderella’ of public policy, as a university lecturer once defined environment protection, rejoice at the Nationalist Party’s proposal – seemingly inspired by the well-attended environmental protest last weekend – to include the “right to the environment” in the constitution?
It depends, for it is the spirit that matters, not platitudes.
The constitution already demands that “the state shall protect and conserve the environment and its resources for the benefit of the present and future generations and shall take measures to address any form of environmental degradation in Malta, including that of air, water and land, and any sort of pollution problem, and to promote, nurture and support the right of action in favour of the environment”.
That this provision is far from adequate can be gleaned from legal opinions expressed over the years. Suffice to mention two.
Eight years ago, Raymond Mangion, then head of the university’s department of legal history and legal methodology, was already arguing that if parliament were to grant “a locus standi to the citizen vis-à-vis the state under the Magna Carta of Malta, it will bring about a revolution in favour of the protection of the environment across its whole territory”.
In May 2021, Nationalist MP Darren Carabott, felt legal reform and political action was necessary. “Let’s all raise our collective voices so that this right is enshrined in our constitution, so that our environment will finally get the protection it deserves,” he wrote.
It could help if the provision in the constitution is widened to allow any person or group to take court action in relation to any decision even remotely linked to the environment
The latest initiative by the PN may well be thanks to his pushing. If enacted and scrupulously enforced, the law the opposition has in mind can perhaps be the beginning of the end of what the so-called development zone ‘rationalisation’ exercise started in 2006.
It could also help if the provision in the constitution is widened to allow any person or group to take court action in relation to any decision even remotely linked to the environment, since, for example, the right to life, to private and family life and to property could be at stake in such decisions. The fact that developers and greedy individuals have done to these islands what the Axis powers did during the war can only be attributed to the emptiness of the political pledges made without law to back them up.
In the 2013 electoral campaign we were promised that the environment would become a priority. Now, as a result of the onslaught on the environment, aided and abetted by the Labour government and its puppet the Planning Authority, the prime minister pledges to spend €700 million to paint urban areas green. Of course, this is just greenwash.
This country is already bound by legal frameworks and international agreements to protect the environment, and yet, it is blatantly clear that the two big political parties have failed miserably.
Environmental scientist Mark Scerri put it graphically when he spoke of carelessly eroding “naturally green” areas and making urban areas uninhabitable to fill the pockets of a handful of “fat cats”.
The Church’s environment commission was right too when it declared that, perhaps, the only effective way to save the environment is through enhanced militancy by environmental groups, residents and local councils.
The question remains: who will be smiling: the “Cinderella of public policy” or the “fat cats”?
The relentless onslaught on the environment by building every nook and cranny of an overpopulated island is impacting, even ruining the lives of too many. With or without the constitution, the people are becoming more determined to stop them.