A proposed law setting up a tribunal to hear appeals from decisions on planning and environment decisions following the Mepa demerger was yesterday hailed by Justice Minister Owen Bonnici as “one of the greenest Bills to be passed by Parliament”.
The proposed law would give NGOs, especially environmental ones, new rights and possibilities to safeguard the environment, including overturning authorities’ decisions. Such rights would also be extended to people not directly involved.
Tribunal decisions that are contested could be taken before the Court of Appeals, presided over by Mr Justice Anthony Ellul.
The tribunal would hear cases in public. It would utilise technical expertise, ensure a faster and less costly output and would publish the reasons behind its decisions. Its members would have security of tenure for five years, thus ensuring better decisions and would not be reappointed after their term was over, Dr Bonnici said.
Cases would no longer be lost on points of procedure because the terms of appeal were being left unchanged.
The new law would also accord the right to execution of permit, which meant that once a permit was issued work would only be stopped if a warrant was issued. In a bid to safeguard against personal vendetta, suspension would have to be decided within 30 days and a final decision would have to be made within three months.
Dr Bonnici said it was difficult to see why the Opposition should not agree with the Bill, which afforded crucial certainty for everybody to know where they stood at each stage.
Shadow environment minister Marthese Portelli reiterated that the Opposition would not participate in the debate until public consultation was over.
She said the Bill was one of three, along with the one establishing the Planning Authority and the other providing for the Environment Authority.
The government was asked by eNGOs and developers to give them time to discuss the proposed laws through a public consultation and all agreed that the debate in Parliament should be held following such consultation.
Family Affairs Minister Michael Farrugia said that if the Opposition did not vote for the Bill in second reading, it would mean it did not agree with transparency. There would be more meaningful checks and balances now that the environment, planning and the appeals tribunal would fall under three separate ministries. The status quo ran counter to EU regulations.
It was a breakthrough that both authorities would have the right to appeal.
Environment Minister Leo Brincat said the biggest and most fundamental difference between the Bill under discussion and the present situation was that, so far, the environment branch of Mepa did not have the right to appeal.
“In itself, this is an important – historical, I would say – step which until now the environment did not benefit from. More than that, it could never exercise it by right,” he said.
He pointed out that, as the law stood, members of the tribunal were expected to be up to date with development planning and these could be architects and lawyers. The Bill lays down that two of the three members must be well versed with both environmental and planning legislation.
It was important that decisions were taken efficiently, especially when there were issues of enforcement and the Bill laid down specific time frames.
The government would now be providing a quantum leap in quality with the Environmental Authority’s Appeal Board. All measures taken within the three new laws would be spearheaded through one goal – that of reflecting the Labour Party’s electoral manifesto that promised that all decisions should take on board environmental policies.
Mr Brincat said the Bill was an important link in a chain that had been introduced to give the environment rights and opportunities on a legal level. This was an innovative law that gave the environment what it had been denied because it was part of Mepa.
Winding up the debate, Planning Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon said the tribunal was “a step in the right direction”, adding that NGOs would have the right to appeal to the tribunal even in the case of environment impact assessments (EIA) and integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC) applications.
Dr Falzon appealed to the Opposition to vote with the government when the division was called on Monday because the Bill in question favoured the environment.