It is heartening news indeed that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority on Friday scheduled 16 historic sites, effectively protecting and preventing further damage.

Indeed, while numerous similar properties and sites are in dire need of similar protection, Friday’s batch of newly protected archaeological sites and buildings represents another great stride in the right direction. Any such effort to safeguard the country’s heritage deserves applause.

Environmental groups yesterday welcomed the new scheduling, particularly that of Sliema’s Villa Bonici and its gardens as enormous victories, while one in particular reiterated its perfectly valid call for owners of such scheduled properties to receive tax rebates that would go toward the maintenance of such properties so as to lessen the financial burden in terms of the upkeep of properties t hat, many times, are not even inhabited.

In a similar vein to Friday’s spate of scheduling, one particularly bold step taken last year comes to mind - one which, funds provided, should be spread more widely. The step in question was when Heritage Malta took the noteworthy move to request the government to expropriate the land around the Ta Hagrat megalithic remains, which was threatened by a development just ten metres away and which had already been granted a development permit. The development in question had been approved despite the recommendations to the contrary from both Heritage Malta and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage.

One hopes that with the Mepa reform now in swing, such conflicts between heritage and development will subside into non-existence.

Once a sensitive site is covered by concrete and development, there is no turning back - and given the rampant and at times unchecked development of the country in the past, more must be done to safeguard what is actually left.

More actions such as that of this week by Mepa and last year by Heritage Malta are wholeheartedly encouraged.

Push-back policy

a doubled-edged sword

Italy’s push-back policy applied to migrants intercepted in Malta’s patch of the Mediterranean is something of a double-edged sword. It has, at last temporarily, solved the migration and asylum dilemma Malta had found itself in by geographical quirk – halfway between Africa and Europe as it is – but, on the flipside, the practice raises some serious problems when it comes to human rights and the legal right to seek asylum.

The UNHCR’s comments on the issue as reported in today’s issue provide considerable food for thought on the contentious, an issue that perhaps not everyone is aware of, although all and sundry are undoubtedly aware of the fact that the mass arrivals of migrant boats now appear to be something in the past.

The practice of immediately pushing all migrant boats back to Libya is a very slippery moral slope indeed. A migrant returned to Libya is a migrant who has not been afforded his or her human right to seek asylum. Over and above that, a country that sends any migrant back to Libya is engaging not only in a practice that falls foul of human rights but possibly even the principle of non-refoulement given Libya’s sketchy human rights record and the alarming reports of treatment meted out to migrants in Malta’s southern neighbour.

Those asylum seekers who are returned to Libya have a legitimate legal and humanitarian right to apply for asylum, which simply cannot be done in Libya. Sending people back to a country that has no human rights standards to speak of, at least when it comes to migrants passing through its territory, and denying them the right to apply for asylum is nothing short of criminal.

Any forced return of migrants to Libya, which is not their country of origin and not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, needs to be completely ruled out. If the authorities are being accused of this, it simply must respond.

Along these lines, the long-expected setting up a UNHCR office on Libya’s sea border - where migrants would be able to apply for asylum in Europe – has never materialised. If the concept could get off the ground, in addition to the fact that thousands of migrants would no longer need embark on a perilous Mediterranean crossing in rickety boats, there would be little need for push backs. Even if they were still to be practiced, they would be more legitimate as any migrant pushed back to Libya could legitimately seek asylum in Europe from Libya shores.

But as Libya continues to haggle with the EU over funding, it is increasingly evident that the country would give no quarter to such a frontline office if, in so doing, it would stand to lose its main bargaining chip in negotiations.