Claims that tightened rules for fuel stations cannot be applied to pending applications were “bollocks” and given the lie by decades of case law, Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi told parliament on Monday.
Dr Azzopardi cited a long list of cases dating back to the 1990s in which the courts had unequivocally stated that planning decisions had to be based on rules in force at the time, not rules in place when applicants had first submitted their applications.
“This is ABC level stuff,” Dr Azzopardi said. “The courts take this as a given, it isn’t even a contested principle.”
The government has pledged to revise planning rules for fuel stations which were introduced in 2015, following a public outcry about a series of applications to build massive fuel stations in Outside Development Zone land .
Revised rules, prepared by the Environment and Resources Authority – Malta’s environmental regulator – are expected to reduce the allowed footprint of fuel stations and limit them to “strictly car maintenance” facilities.
However, the revised rules will not apply to pending applications, with the government saying this would impinge on applicants’ legitimate expectation.
“Legitimate expectation” is a legal doctrine which states that an individual or group can expect a decision-maker to follow a certain procedure before a decision is taken. The intention is to avoid decision-makers from shifting the goalposts.
“Love it or hate it,” Dr Herrera had said when citing the reasoning during an Environment and Development Planning Committee meeting held earlier on Monday evening, “the law currently favours the applicant.”
But that did not wash with Dr Azzopardi. The PN environment spokesman and lawyer delved into Maltese case lawe to shoot down that line of argument, saying the courts had made it clear time and time again that no such legitimate expectation could be applied in planning application cases.
“This is a charade,” he told fellow MPs. “They lied to hide environmental degradation. If all these fuel station applications are approved, we’ll have covered virgin land 50 times the size of the Granaries (in Floriana) with fuel stations. And we will never be able to reverse that.”