Environmental NGOs are discussing potential legal avenues to revoke appeals against Planning Authority permits that were rejected when its current executive chairman Martin Saliba used to chair the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal (EPRT).
Times of Malta has revealed that Saliba sat on the tribunal, a legally independent planning appeals body, while on unpaid leave from the PA between 2013 and 2019.
Lawyer and environmentalist Claire Bonello said on Monday that several appellants and NGOs were looking to remedy what she described as a “rigged” appeals process.
Bonello has represented NGOs and objectors in several high-profile appeals before the tribunal, including on the Central Link project in November.
Last year, the lawyer successfully fought for the revocation of the permit awarded to db Group at Pembroke, after Matthew Pace, one of the planning board members who voted in favour, was found to have a conflict of interest due to his real estate holdings.
The tribunal is tasked with adjudicating appeals against decisions taking by the PA as well as the Environment Resources Authority.
Bonello slammed its former chairman for having never disclosed to appellants his “glaring” conflict of interest as a PA employee.
“The fact that he refuses to accept that there was this glaring conflict of interest is proof that he was not fit for purpose – especially not fit for the role of an adjudicator of an independent and impartial tribunal,” Bonello said.
The lawyer said Saliba’s actions underlined the contempt held for environmental NGOs and members of the public who invest time, money and resources in an appeal process which is “rigged”.
She said environmental NGOs were calling upon the authorities to have Saliba assume responsibility for this breach.
“How can the person who knowingly breached appellants’ rights for all these years now head the PA as if nothing happened?” she questioned.
Saliba was appointed to the EPRT in 2013 directly by then Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Muscat also signed off on his re-appointment to the PA in 2017.
The former prime minister did not respond to a request for comment about whether he knew Saliba was a PA employee in 2013.
Saliba has defended the unpaid leave arrangement, saying that unlike other tribunal members, who were lawyers and architects, he did not have a profession to fall back once his term on the tribunal was up.
He left the tribunal in 2019 soon after dismissing an appeal against the permit given by the PA for the controversial Central Link project on November 7.
The project was championed by Infrastructure Minister Ian Borg.
Just over a week later, on November 15, a public call to fill the executive chairman role at the PA was published by the Infrastructure Ministry, after Johann Buttigieg vacated the role in October. The call closed on November 22.
The Infrastructure Ministry announced Saliba has been appointed to the role on November 29.