Environmental organisations entitled to contest public entities' decisions, court holds

The Court of Appeal has declared that an environmental organisation may contest the decisions of public entities which affect the environment.

This emerged in a landmark decision handed down on Friday by the Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri and judges Giannino Caruana Demajo and Noel Cuschieri in a case filed by the Ramblers' Association of Malta against the Planning Authority.

The case dealt with the validity of a permit issued to a property in Wied tal-Marga, limits of Bahrija – a zone the Association describes as “having ecological, scientific and archaeological value” - and that permit's subsequent extension.

The defendants had argued that the association, not being directly involved in the permit or development, had lacked the juridical interest to contest its issue – an argument which had been upheld by the First Hall of the Civil Court.

But this has now been reversed on appeal, the court holding that the Association was invoking a right against a governing body and not against the individuals who had been issued the permit.

The court applied the 2006 Plans and Programmes (Public Participation) Regulations, which transposed the EU directives implementing the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, into Maltese law, noting that EU directives' direct effect between the State and the individual could also have an incidental affect on the legal position of other private individuals.

The Court of Appeal concluded that the Ramblers Association was able to request a declaration on the validity of a permit and to request its effects to be reversed. The court revoked the judgement of the court of first instance, sending the case back to that court for a decision on the merits.

Lawyer Joseph Ellis represented the Ramblers' Association, while lawyer Ian Borg appeared on behalf of MEPA. Lawyers Franco Vassallo and Joseph Camilleri assisted the owners of the property in question.