After court defeat, hunters expect government to come through on Miżieb and l-Aħrax

Malta’s hunting lobby is insisting that an Appeals Court decision to render its guardianship of the Miżieb and l-Aħrax countryside lands null at law, neither affects the agreement’s “validity” or the notion that the FKNK hould not have been granted this agreement.

“Contrary to what is being said by some media sources, there has never been any concealment about this agreement, so much so, that the agreement in question was made public immediately and is still accessible online to this day,” the FKNK said in a reaction to Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff’s decree that the Lands Authority’s outright grant of the land was illegal.

The FKNK also noted with satisfaction that the government would be discussing the situation with the lobby and the competent authorities about the way forward.

The Maltese government is now saying the “reserves” of Miżieb and l-Aħrax have been “for years administered by the FKNK since the 1980s” and that the agreement signed in 2020 was supposed to regularise this understanding. “The government takes note of the Court’s decision,” the official statement read.

Hunters have no title to Miżieb and l-Aħrax tal-Mellieha, Lands Authority says

The decision by Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff comes months after NGOs’ objections to the FKNK land deal had been thrown out by the Administrative Review Tribunal back in January 2022.

Mintoff said the 9 October 2020 deal signed between the State and the FKNK was now “null and without effect” because it had not been carried out according to the formalities of the law in force.

The Appeals Court said the Lands Authority had no right at law to concede to the FKNK a “personal right” to manage these sites without a formal process mandated by law.

“The law regulates property transfers by sale, emphyteusis, rent, or part-exchange...

“The Tribunal had to determine whether the agreement qualified as a ‘rental’, and whether this was itself justified at law, that is for humanitarian, philantropic, cultural or social reasons. In the absence of such justification, the concession is deemed null and without effect.”

The case was filed by BirdLife Malta, Moviment Graffitti, Din l-Art Ħelwa, Friends of the Earth (Malta), Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar and the Ramblers Association.

“Today’s judgement penned by Judge Lawrence Mintoff handing over Miżieb and Aħrax woodlands to the hunting lobby is a historic win for social justice and nature,” said BirdLife CEO Mark Sultana. “It sends a clear message to the government that political will can only be implemented within the legal parameters.”

The Lands Authority had granted the guardianship of the two woodlands to the FKNK in a deed secretly signed between the government and the organisation in October last year. The two sprawling sites are traditional hunting grounds but also popular as recreational areas.

Supported by a nationwide outcry against the news of large stretches of land being given secretly to the FKNK, the NGO said that the Court’s decision was indeed historical. 

“Lawyers Claire Bonello, Joseph Ellis and Martin Farrugia were capable to show the Courts how unfair and illegal this secret agreement was, where the large stretches of land at l- Aħrax and Miżieb were to be enjoyed only by a few hundred hunters during the long months of hunting seasons in Malta, to the detriment of the general public,” Sultana said.