The government is seeking legal advice on whether to appeal a judgement by the Constitutional Court which ordered the appeal against the Marsascala recycling plant to be heard again.

The Court ruled that the Planning Appeals Board that decided the case in 2005 was not “independent and impartial”.

In his judgement, reported in The Times today, Mr Justice Gino Camilleri said the fundamental human rights of the Marsascala local council were breached because the planning appeals board was appointed by the Environment Minister, who was also responsible for pushing forward the controversial project. As a result, the board’s independence and impartiality were compromised in breach of the applicants’ human rights.

The Resources Ministry in a statement this afternoon that the article reporting the judgement made no mention of a statement it issued last Thursday.

In its statement it had noted that it had said that the Court indicated that the case should be heard by the Planning and Review Tribunal.

The ministry said that the government had followed the provisions of the law which had specified that such appeals are heard by the Planning Appeals Board, which had been appointed according to law.

The judgement given on Thursday was not one on the merit of the application but regarded the adopted procedure and whether the Appeals’ Board had been constituted according to law to consider the case, the ministry said.

It said that, as declared on a number of occasions, the process for the modernisation of the plant the government observed European and national regulations.

This was confirmed in separate European Commission decisions as well as by the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee. The court’s decision did not cast any doubt on this.

The Sant’Antnin had been built to:

* Increase waste separation

* Exploit waste as a resource

*Trasform part of the waste into compost

*Produce electricity from waste Improve the environment through less waste and lower use of fuel.