A man who owns a field which is about to have its freshly restored rubble wall demolished by the planning authority yesterday took the issue to the Constitutional Court after he found out he could not appeal Mepa’s decision.

Tarcisio Borg from Baħrija bought the land in an area known as ta’ Bieb ir-Ruwa some years back and recently decided to restore the rubble wall which has been on site for at least the past 40 years.

However, he was slapped with an enforcement notice by the Malta Environment Panning Authority, after he restored the wall without permission.

To support his claim that the wall has been in place for four decades, Mr Borg presented an aerial photograph taken in 1968 which clearly marks out the wall.

He then requested a warrant of prohibitory injunction to stop Mepa from proceeding with the demolition, which was dismissed by a judge after the authority invoked article 90 of chapter 504 of the Environment and Development Planning Act.

The law in question does not allow any further legal action once an enforcement notice is issued.

However, in the case presented by Mr Borg, his lawyers argued that the law was unconstitutional as it did not allow him to appeal the decision and did not allow him to have a fair trial when filing for the warrant of prohibitory injunction, Mr Borg said.

He asked the Constitutional Court to declare the law unconstitutional and rule that the courts had the power to stop Mepa from acting on enforcement notices, to provide an effective remedy and to stop the authority from demolishing the wall.

Lawyers David Camilleri and Jose Herrera signed the application.