Johann Buttigieg, the outgoing executive chairman of the Planning Authority, has been fined €100 and ordered to be accompanied to court for the next hearing after being found in contempt of court.
Last Tuesday, Mr Buttigieg failed to turn up for a court hearing in a case instituted by NGO Din l-Art Ħelwa against Mr Buttigieg and the Planning Authority over what the NGO says are illegal works at Villa St Ignatius in Balluta.
Judge Grazio Mercieca, presiding over the case, declared that Mr Buttigieg’s failure to turn up as a witness was disrespectful to the court.
A day before this week’s court hearing, Mr Buttigieg filed an application to postpone the sitting saying he was constrained to travel to London.
He did not provide a reason for his overseas trip. When asked for one by Times of Malta, he had not replied by the time of writing.
Din l-Art Ħelwa is asking for administrative redress because the Planning Authority and Mr Buttigieg refused to issue an enforcement order after the developer defied the law.
Failure to turn up as a witness was disrespectful to the court
During the previous sitting, Mr Buttigieg revealed that he had ordered the demolition of Villa St Ignatius to carry on after receiving a phone call from Pawlu Lia, the lawyer for the developer Paul Gauci.
In late 2017, PA enforcement officers had gone on site and ordered works on the demolition of part of the historic villa to stop in order to ascertain the legality of the developer’s actions.
Following a phone call from Dr Lia, who is the Prime Minister’s personal lawyer in the Egrant case and represents the Labour Party in court cases, Mr Buttigieg ordered the enforcement officers to let the demolition continue.
Questioned by Din l-Art Ħelwa’s lawyer Franco Vassallo, Mr Buttigieg admitted that the permit for the removal of dangerous structures, originally obtained by the developer for the limited removal of some roof slabs, had lapsed, and that the other demolition works were not covered by a valid permit.
The PA’s executive chairman also stated he had ordered that works should only continue on the orders of the architect on site. It later resulted that the architect, Stephen Vancell, was not on site when a whole wing of the historic building was demolished in breach of permit conditions.
Both Mr Vancell and developer Mr Gauci are facing separate contempt of court proceedings which could lead to a jail sentence.
Villa St Ignatius, in Scicluna Street, is part of a larger property which once housed the first Jesuits’ College in Malta and which was mentioned as a landmark building as early as 1839.