The chief justice has turned down a request for the revocation of a controversial permit granted to Foreign Minister Ian Borg to build his residence in Santa Katerina valley, on the outskirts of Rabat, dismissing claims that the planning review tribunal had misinterpreted the law.
Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti rubbished an appeal filed by objector Noel Ciantar who tried to have the permit revoked on the strength of article 80 of the Development Planning Act.
The decision came eight months after the same judge ruled that the Planning Authority was unjustified in having granted Borg and his wife, Rachelle Borg Dingli, a permit to build a pool and ancillary facilities on land adjacent to their home in the hamlet on the outskirts of Rabat.
On that occasion, the judge also chastised the Environment and Planning Tribunal, which serves as the planning appeals board, for its incorrect interpretation of planning rules when it dismissed an appeal against that permit.
This time around, the chief justice found no reason to change the EPRT’s decision on the appeal from the planning permit granted to Borg to build his residence in 2014.
Ciantar argued that the appeal decision was based on the Environment and Development Planning Act, which had been substituted with the Development Planning Act when the government had split MEPA’s environment and planning functions.
The court, however, disagreed with two arguments put forward by Ciantar on the basis of these two laws, noting that article 80 of the Development Planning Act came into force in 2016, two years after the permit had been issued. The proceedings seeking the revocation of the permit had started in October 2018.
The planning permit granted to Borg was shrouded in controversy from the very beginning. In 2015, the Permanent Commission Against Corruption found no evidence up to the level required by criminal law that could lead to the conclusion that Borg or anyone else had carried out, tried to carry out or was in any way an accomplice in any crime.
Borg had been in the spotlight over his purchase of the land and the way permits had been granted for the proposed development.
The corruption commission had started its investigations after the environment and planning commissioner within the office of the ombudsman found that Borg had used a “devious method” to file his application, using the name of the site manager – Renald Azzopardi – instead of his.
The ombudsman had also found that the then Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) had changed the classification of the development application “removing one possible reason (and a very strong one) for refusing the proposal, thereby facilitating its approval”.
MEPA’s “series of omissions and variations cannot be put down to human error but point to a deliberate attempt to remove the one remaining obstacle potentially blocking approval of the application”, the ombudsman had said as he urged it to reassess the application.
The permanent commission, presided over by retired judge Lawrence Quintano, later concluded that Borg had done nothing illegal or criminal regarding his residence.
The way Borg had purchased the farmhouse, which he then demolished to build his house, was also shrouded in controversy. The Malta Independent on Sunday published a story in July 2015 claiming Borg had bought the land from a mentally ill man.
The article reported how 66-year-old Anthony Scicluna, a vulnerable person afflicted by mental health issues, had sold the property to Borg after a weekend-long drinking spree. His relatives claimed that this was all part of “diabolical plan to exploit Scicluna’s vulnerability” and get him to sell the land to Borg, who, at the time, was a parliamentary secretary and who had acquired another parcel of land nearby.