Government launched two bills in July 2025 (numbers 143 and 144) whose main purpose is to assault the little environment, open space, artistic buildings, archaeological heritage, natural sites, and greenery that remain in Malta. The main environmentally destructive provisions have already been referred to elsewhere and this contribution is not intended, due to lack of space, to carry out a detailed analysis thereof but to comment on their gist and intended outcome.
These two ultra-reactionary bills are purposefully, cruelly, and deceitfully aimed to remove all remedies that environmental non-governmental organisations, local councils, and residents' associations have to date to curb the enormous abuse that we have been witnessing over the years of the government-and-developers-captured Planning Authority and to ensure that all development applications that run contrary to the law, any development plan, and planning policy are approved with ease, with no possibility of challenge before an independent and impartial court or before the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal. Thanks to our progressive (sic!) government, these remedies will soon become something of the past, forgotten, dead and buried.
In terms of these bills, government will no longer be accountable for all accountability provisions that exist today in the law for they are all set to be soon dismantled. Democracy is once again at stake through the introduction of these fascist measures typical of the Labour Party that are extremely reactionary, ultra-regressive, and intended to deprive rights that the Maltese have been fighting for to secure, and subsequently enjoyed, over a period of years. For instance, Malta has enjoyed, since 1812, a right not to be held under arrest for no more than 48 hours. But the right-wing Labour Party has decided, in these cases, to double that amount of arrest. And they call this progress. My dictionary calls it regress.
With these amendments, the environment will be left to its own devices with nobody to defend it. Government and developers will rape it, re-rape it, and continue to re-rape it with no dire consequences. The rule of law will now be replaced by the rule of corrupt ministers and developers. The law of the few anointed ones will prevail. There is a serious crisis of democracy in Malta. Of course, next year, we will read another useless rule of law report penned by the European Commission on Malta possibly criticising these measures as well but no concrete and effective action will be taken, as in previous years, by the farcical European Commission that continues to act in breach of its own treaty in relation to Malta when it desists from taking action against the Labour government.
These amendments are making a mockery of the planning system for, after they are approved by parliament, planning in Malta would be something of the past, a textbook subject to be learnt by architects at University but never to be applied, totally inexistent in practice, a relic of better progressive times. Essentially government and developers would have captured the Planning Authority not as a matter of fact, as this is already the position today, but by a Labour Party given legal and parliamentary right.
These bills will also make a mockery of the appeals procedure to the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal whilst ensuring that, after their enactment, the Court of Appeal would be castrated, silenced, muzzled, rendered ineffective, and totally irrelevant. The Court of Appeal will not be able to revoke any illegal development permit that an environmental organisation would have challenged to save the little environment that ministers and developers in their joint business ventures would not have yet destroyed to appease the god of greed who motivates them and fuels their selfishness in appropriating, with government's blessing and piggying policy, what belongs to the people. With the Court of Appeal not being able to revoke an illegal permit, and with a Planning Authority completely controlled by ministers/developers as in the infamous times of Lorry Sant, the sky is the limit in obtaining development permits. The very much limited citizen participation in the judicial system to curb government abuse in this sector will be erased once and for all by these bills to the full contentment of corrupt ministers and avarice developers. Government has already walked this route when it gave impunity to corrupt ministers in the case of magisterial inquiries so that corrupt ministers can never ever be investigated, let alone prosecuted.
The gist of these two bills is clear: government and developers will control entirely, with the blessing of a devious law, with no interference whatsoever from independent courts, the planning system in Malta and any hint of any person attempting to save the continued destruction of the environment synonymous with the minister-developer-controlled Planning Authority is ridden roughshod. The obtaining law and its environment protection provisions are being dismantled piece by piece to ensure that nothing is left in place so that the little environment protection measures that remain today on the statute book are removed completely so as not to hinder corrupt ministers in piggying.
It is a huge disgrace for the Prime Minister, his ministers, and the Labour Party parliamentary group who have stooped so low in environment protection. These people have no shame. These two bills will, black on white on the statute book, enact the Labour Party's hypocrisy on environment protection clearly indicating that Labour in government does not give a damn about the environment but, instead, is all out for piggying and sharing in the proceeds acquired from environment destruction. They even have no soul to witness, and be the main culprits personally responsible for, such destruction of nature. The Labour Party parliamentary group has declared war on the environment to appease greedy developers. As though all the scandals, bad administration, and bad governance we have witnessed under the Muscat and Abela administrations are not enough to force down our throat! Now piggying will become inscribed in the law: a legal right to be enjoyed by the few government chosen ones and - possibly in the near future - why not, a constitutional one as well!
These right-wing populist tactics so much associated with the Labour government are not in the public interest but in the private interest of developers and corrupt ministers/public officers/planning authority officers. They bring Malta into utter disrepute and indicate that government has lost its rudder: good governance has gone to the dogs. It is the developers who dictate Malta's planning policies and together with piggying ministers and their acolytes are in command. These two bills have been purposefully crafted to ensure that this will be the case.
Through these two bills, the developers would have legally bought government, the Planning Authority and Maltese territory. It is a big shame on the Labour Party and its parliamentary group to allow this to happen in Malta that their ministers in cahoots with developers will destroy the environment that all Maltese have enjoyed till today.
It is not without reason that Moviment Graffitti have termed these two bills a 'developers' wish-list'. In a few days/weeks' time, nevertheless, the wish list will transform itself into a marvellous dream come true thanks to the Labour Party's parliamentary group's piggying policy, disrespect of the environment, open spaces, artistic buildings, archaeological heritage, natural sites, and the little greenery that remains. The enactment of these two bills will confirm that Malta was, is, and will continue to be mired in corruption. GRECO, FATF please note and wake up! Now it is not the time to sleep but to do your duty and take action. Please do not look the other way as the European Commission has been accustomed of doing since it has been penning unenforceable rule of law reports on Malta: it has not only failed the legitimate expectations of a Member State but has fallen foul of its obligations under the EU Treaty.
Once these bills are enacted into law in the not too distant future, and the government's piggying policy enshrined in law, if not in the Constitution in the chapter regulating the government, the next step for the government would be to celebrate this happy occasion and erect in Castille square a monument to the god of greed. In this way, government would call a spade a spade.
Kevin Aquilina is Professor of Law, Faculty of Laws of the University of Malta