In having pressed charges against a BirdLife activist for trespassing in Miżieb, the FKNK hunting lobby has ended up shooting itself in the foot. 

And by having chosen to open the can of worms that is the hunting federation’s supposed rights over the whole of Miżieb and L-Aħrax tal-Mellieħa, two areas in the countryside of rare natural beauty, it may have pushed the envelope a little too far.

In a nutshell, on Tuesday a criminal court ruled that a BirdLife Malta volunteer had not trespassed on property ‘entrusted’ to the FKNK because, it transpired, the federation was unable to produce any satisfactory documentary evidence proving that Miżieb had actually been legally handed over to the FKNK, as it insists, back in 1986.

The finer details of the case are irrelevant to the argument in question. What does matter is that the court, in clearing the volunteer of trespassing, unequivocally stated that over the course of a three-year court case the prosecution failed to present a site plan of the area it says it had been entrusted with and an authentic copy of the 1986 agreement to support the claim of trespassing. 

This means that the FKNK has failed to prove a valid legal title over the land and, as such, it holds no legal ambit with which to exercise any rights over it.

For the last 31 years the FKNK has argued that the government had ‘entrusted’ both Miżieb and L-Aħrax to the FKNK back in 1986 as hunting reserves. It says that in October 1989 the government confirmed the FKNK’s title of possession, and that the Director of Lands had also confirmed the 1986 agreement. The agreement, the FKNK argues, was re-confirmed by the government in May 2010 and in February 2011.

But it seems that the only document that makes reference to this issue was a letter written by former Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici in 1986, which is far from a legal document transferring the land to the FKNK. 

Back then, the former Prime Minister had promised the land to the hunters in the run-up to the general election.  The problem is that the law does not permit any Prime Minister to treat public land as his own and to give it away in its own political interests.

The management of public land by NGOs is only permitted following a legal agreement that imposes a strict site management regulatory framework.  Through the agreement it says it has, the FKNK claims the exclusive right to use the ‘reserves’ during hunting seasons, to keep the areas clean and maintain them, and to render them accessible to the public only outside hunting seasons – in other words for nearly half the year, every year – with no legal basis to do so.

But over the decades, despite there being no formal or legal agreement for the FKNK’s use of the land, hunters actively try to exclude the public with ‘No Entry’ signs, effectively depriving the public of their right of access to these areas of priceless natural beauty.

The federation’s claims, however, have not held up to the scrutiny of the law courts.

In the wake of the court’s ruling that, despite what is claimed by FKNK, it is clear that no valid legal title exists to give the hunters' federation legal possession over these areas of public land, and the government now finds itself in an awkward situation.

The government cannot now sit on the imaginary fence separating the public from Mizieb and L-Aħrax.  It will need to declare the land handed over to hunters and it will have to legally bind itself to having done so with actual paperwork, or declare otherwise.  And either way in so doing it will undoubtedly invoke either the wrath of environmentalists or that of hunters.