Twelve months after the election of a Labour government, there are increasing signs that the concerns of environmentalists and people of goodwill who care about the rule of law and the manner in which planning decisions are made by Mepa are fully justified. Two major unrelated issues have highlighted misgivings.

The first concerns the policy change in Mepa’s rules that allowed a temporary permit to be given to a service station in Qormi – closed down six years ago – to operate parts of it for three years “pending the sanctioning process”. The previous Mepa board had overwhelmingly turned down an earlier application to sanction the development since the developer had abused his permit by almost doubling the building footprint.

What was remarkable about the understandable storm that this decision provoked was the Prime Minister’s reaction. He nonchalantly thought that “the most important thing” was that “a decision had been made”, adding, for good measure: “The government does not intervene in the decisions taken by Mepa”. Both statements are questionable.

The first because simply “making a decision” cannot be the be-all-and-end-all of good administration.

Good administration demands that the best possible decisions are made in all circumstances and that the law – especially planning law – is not bent to suit particular circumstances.

Secondly, his claim that the government does not intervene in Mepa’s decisions is not borne out by the prime minister’s personal intervention in the permit for the power station and LNG storage facility at Marsaxlokk less than a week after the petrol station decision.

Here, the prime minister ill-advisedly sent a letter to the Mepa chairman before the public hearing stating that the government intended to proceed with the project if it was approved even if there was an appeal against the decision. The message was clear: a planning permit is expected and when it is given the government will brook no delay in proceeding even if there is an appeal.

This was a heavy-handed intervention putting unwarranted pressure on the Mepa board since, according to law, there was no need for it. In a project deemed to be “of national importance”, the government can call on the appeals board to make a “recommendation”, rather than take a “decision”, with the final verdict resting with Cabinet.

Even allowing for the fact that the prime minister had staked his political future on the achievement of this project within a two-year time-scale, the way in which this highly sensitive project has been handled has further undermined confidence in the planning authority. The environmental impact assessment has been botched, with a most important element – the maritime impact assessment – still to be completed.

As the dust settles on the marathon planning authority session, it is clear that the axiom of the precautionary principle embedded in EU law (that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful should fall on those taking the action) has not been properly satisfied.

The Qormi service station case and, more importantly, given its possible impact on human life, the woeful handling of the gas facilities and power station project at Delimara have left a bad taste and posed further questions about the independence and objectivity of Mepa.