The Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) was on Thursday stopped in its tracks in demolishing an illegal structure in Wardija. This was the fourth time in less than a month.

The structure, which was meant to be a stable, was actually a quite habitable dwelling in the countryside. The case started off some five years ago when Mepa’s enforcement unit detected the illegal development of four adjacent rooms, boundary walls, concreting and timber gates in this stretch of countryside.

The owners tried to get the structure sanctioned. This attempt failed. But in 2007, the owners filed another application to sanction the rebuilding of rooms and conversion into stables. In April 2008, Mepa officials went to have a look at progress, and saw that the building was complete with shower, bathroom, kitchenette and was classified as a habitable building. Once the applications were turned down, the owner even appealed, but the three appeals were also thrown out, with the emphasis being on the fact that the rooms should never have been there in the first place; they were illegal.

The owner was then informed that direct action was going to be carried out – in other words, Mepa was going to demolish the structure. The land owner took no notice and did not avail himself of the opportunity to knock it down himself – in doing so, saving on costs which Mepa would have charged him. However, when Mepa began to demolish the building, officials were served with a court notice to stop works as the owner had filed for a prohibitory injunction in court. Mepa pointed out that this was the fourth such incident in less than a month.

There are two questions to ask. The first is, if the person in question had exhausted every possible means of getting the building sanctioned, and these had been turned down, coupled with the fact that it was a habitable dwelling when it was supposed to be a stable; why has Mepa’s hard work been halted?

This case goes back five years and it is very clear that the Mepa team has investigated the matter top to bottom and every time come to the conclusion that there was no right to build on the spot of land. It declared time and time again that the structure is illegal. So one has to question what legal loopholes are being exploited in preventing such work from continuing.

Mepa must be given the necessary clout to be able to proceed, or at least there needs to be some provision in the law whereby one must adhere to stringent criteria in being able to submit an application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction. Various forms of legal redress have been made tougher to apply for, such as libels, writs and submission of legal correspondence; why not the same for prohibitory injunctions?

The other issue which needs to be talked about is, just how much is all this costing the tax payer. Sittings are held, and these cost money. At the end of the day, it seems that the legal system has created a loophole whereby ‘developers’ are being given the opportunity to lodge appeal after appeal, even when Mepa has repeatedly investigated and deemed such developments illegal. Meanwhile, Mepa said it will not allow such tactics to prevent it from removing illegal structures and will continue with its concerted drive to enforce the law.