I refer to the letter by Ray Bezzina, communications coordinator at the Rural Affairs and the Environment Ministry (TMID, 2 March) with regard to the Scott Wilson Report on landfills and the citizens’ right to know under the Aarhus convention.

The facts directly contradict the statement that the ministry is “completely in favour of ensuring access to environmental information to the public” Regardless of the ratification of the convention and its transposition into Maltese law by LN 217/2001, the government has sat tight over the Scott Wilson Report for well over a year.

In spite of strenuous efforts to have the report published the government conveniently kept it all secret for as long as it liked, well knowing that the report it held spoke of emissions which it was duty bound to make public under the Aarhus Convention.

Mr Bezzina’s attention is drawn to the fact that under Article 9(d) of LN 217/2001 as drawn up in the peculiar Maltese interpretation of the convention, the minister may request the competent authority to refuse a request for information on the environment when it affects matters of commercial and industrial confidentiality. This provision was effectively used as a firewall preventing any public access to the information contained in the Scott Wilson Report. The excuse of commercial and industrial confidentiality was also used to prevent any further dialogue on waste matters since the issue of a tender of integrated waste management in 2002.

Article 9 (d) of the LN 217/2001 is clearly contrary to Article 2.3 (d) of the convention which specifies that while the confidentiality of commercial and industrial information is respected, information on emissions of relevance to the protection of the environment must be disclosed. A letter of complaint was filed by Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party with the Aarhus Convention monitoring board at the United Nations HQ in Geneva.

It is hoped that the proceedings will improve public access to environmental information and may make the ministry’s claims fall closer to the truth.

Mark Causon

Environment spokesperson

Alternattiva Demokratika