Simon Busuttil is on record stating that he wants the Nationalist Party to be much more than a formidable Opposition. He is striving for the party to earn the people’s trust as a credible alternative government to the present one.

With feet firmly planted to the ground we are aware this requires gruelling work on our part. But we know we can deliver.

Last week’s seminal initiative and legislative proposal by the Opposition in the field of environment and cultural heritage protection is a case in point.

Since last week’s presentation of the public domain legislation, we have met or been contacted by several individuals and NGOs who hold our environment close at heart.

Some have termed it a “qualitative leap” in protection and governance of our environment. Others have called it “radical” and “revolutionary”.

If this Bill becomes law, it will be a paradigm shift in the way the government administers certain property of unique environmental, ecological, historical or cultural value.

What we are proposing is that the government, for the first ever time, unilaterally imposes upon itself restrictions in the way it administers this special public property by legally binding itself to administer it as a fiduciary for present and future generations.

The Bill was not invented out of thin air. The Italians and the French have Codes of Law on the public domain. This Bill catches in brief the core substance of the wonderful principles already discovered by bigger thinkers over the millennia. They saw the need to express, in law, rules to fill the void resulting from the continuing emergence of free-for-all mentalities which were constantly playing havoc with the public domain, the patrimony of which most of us enjoy and appreciate but some do not.

But what is property considered to be public domain? It is that part of the nation’s property which private interests traditionally cannot own, develop or trade and it is considered as extra commercium, that is, it cannot form the subject matter of a contract, it cannot be bought or sold or leased and private rights cannot be created over it.

This law is about empowering people

Typical examples are the open countryside, valleys, woods, public squares, the coastal perimeter, bastions, fortifications, chapels and generally things belonging to the government which serve direct and immediate public and collective utility and which should be preserved for future generations.

Even movable things having cultural, social, archaeological, artistic, ecological or historical importance, including museum collections, art galleries and libraries, can be declared to be public domain by a specific Act of Parliament as this Bill is proposing.

The Opposition’s Private Member’s Bill is stating, for the first ever time, that in owning and administering this property for the benefit of all, the government acts as a fiduciary and thus has more obligations and severely restricted rights.

This Bill is defining the coastal perimeter and the foreshore for the first ever time. It scrutinises land reclamation. It is declaring that the national patrimony consists of public property (which is intra commercium and can be the subject of contracts as per the existing Disposal of Government Land Act) and public domain, which are all things the government owns as a result of its sovereignty.

The Bill contains the most comprehensive set of rules on the status of government property and the related rules of law applicable to its acquisition, ownership, transfer and administration and the grant of private rights thereon.

What is innovative in this Bill is the unprecedented possibility of having public property declared to be public domain, something which any environmental NGO can demand. Zones earmarked as zones of national importance should be priority areas to be declared public domain.

It will not be within a minister’s power to declare a particular area to be public domain or to give grants over public domain property.

This will only be possible through an Act of Parliament ensuring unprecedented transparency and good governance. Our Bill provides that for such public domain property to be subject to grants or administrative decisions, it must be declassified by another Act of Parliament, with the accompanying scrutiny, in order for it to become public property.

However, public domain property becomes subject to public domain obligations and remains so even when declassified. Declassification will never change the nature of the property. Consequently, even if private rights are granted over declassified public domain, the private grantee will still be bound to protect and preserve the property and operate it consistently with its nature.

This Bill has huge environmental and economic relevance since it is important to have valid and clear legal rights in relation to all areas within the national patrimony. It is important from the angle of good governance of public property. It is ultimately of great social relevance because we are taking the unprecedented step of establishing a method to define areas in the Maltese Islands as public domain, which means that those areas are declared to be accessible to all for public enjoyment and no one can hinder such enjoyment except as expressly provided for in the law.

But most importantly this law is about empowering people: from individual citizens to groups of citizens and NGOs and giving them a direct stake in ensuring that the beautiful areas in our country are preseved for present and future generations, for our children and their children, as our common heritage.

The authors are Nationalist MPs.