Fifty years after Malta’s Constitution adopted Article 9, which promised that “the State shall safeguard the landscape and historical and artistic patrimony of the Nation”, an imaginative Bill has been proposed by the PN empowering citizens and NGOs to recommend land and property to be listed as “public domain”, which would mean it cannot be commercialised and public access across it would be guaranteed.

The aim of the Public Domain Bill is to protect national, cultural and historical heritage for the benefit of future generations. If passed, it will impose upon the government limitations on the use of public land and assets (most of which are owned by the State) and the obligation to safeguard them and ensure public access. The Nationalist Party has promised that if the Bill does not become law under this administration, it is committed to implementing it when in government.

The Bill envisages that certain land and assets – such as the seabed and sub-soil, the coastal perimeters and foreshore (which the law defines as up to 15 metres inland) – would automatically be categorised as public domain. Other areas and property, including valleys, squares, woods, forts, nature reserves and cultural artefacts, can be proposed for listing as public domain.

The drafters of the Bill claim that it will ensure good governance, transparency and accountability in administering Malta’s common heritage.

However, the law would not be retrospective. Land already subject to a valid contract would be excluded from the public domain and users would have to prove within a set time that it was legitimately acquired and registered, which should help clarify false claims of land ownership such as, presumably, the beach-hut squatters. It would also mean, for example, that prime coastal sites or woodland could not be given away by government ‘at the stroke of a pen’ without prior parliamentary scrutiny.

Malta’s land-use has been subject to planning abuse by successive governments for at least the past half-century. The introduction of Malta’s first planning authority in 1992 was welcomed as a new dawn ushering in proper management of our built architectural and heritage landscape after the planning free-for-all of 28 years before.

The introduction of a Guardian for Future Generations under the Sustainability Development Act was similarly welcomed – but the four Guardians resigned for lack of action only recently.

History has therefore taught us to be sceptical. The results in practice of all these land-use initiatives have been disappointing as successive governments have lacked the political will to rein back construction development and the misuse of the ‘public domain’. Will it be any different if the Public Domain Bill becomes law?

Environmentalists and lovers of our cultural heritage have understandably welcomed the spirit underlying the drafting of this Bill. It promises an end to the political mind-set of successive governments which have regarded all public land as being solely in their gift to do with as they pleased.

One of the tests of whether this Bill stands a chance of changing attitudes to the public domain and land-use is whether this Labour government is willing to embrace a new approach to land and the environment by giving it cross-party support.

Given its record over the past two years, the auguries are not good. But perhaps the result of the hunting referendum and the strong voice of half the people of this country in favour of the environment will have given Prime Minister Joseph Muscat cause to change tack and support it.