740 cases assigned to MEPA’s ‘part-time’ appeal’s board
New board handling backlog of cases that has been accumulated over the past years.
740 pending cases have been transferred from the jurisdiction of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority's full-time appeals tribunal appointed in 2011 to a new part-time tribunal recently appointed by the new Labour government.
The government justified the creation of the new board, claiming that a backlog of cases has been accumulated over the past years.
Known as Tribunal B, the panel appointed by the new government is chaired by planner Martin Saliba and includes Freeport chairman Robert Sarsero, a practising architect and part-owner of Arkea Projects and Main Properties Ltd, and Labour candidate and lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace.
A spokesperson for parliamentary secretary for planning Michael Farrugia confirmed that "all pending cases which were not awaiting a decision" - which number around 740 - will be decided by the new board. The original panel's workload will be limited to concluding those cases which are in their final stages.
The Environment and Planning Review Tribunal has the last say in appeals presented against decisions taken by the MEPA boards and commissions.
The new panel appointed last month will therefore have the ultimate say over a number of controversial pending cases.
These include the appeal presented by the Portomaso developers against the MEPA's board's decision to refuse a permit for 46 villas located in a zone designated as an ecological area in the original permit for the Portomaso development.
The new part-time board complements an existing board composed of architect Chris Falzon as chairperson, Dr Ramon Rossignaud and architect Jevon Vella, who were engaged on a full-time basis for four years by MEPA in 2011.
Tribunal A's responsibility will now be that of concluding those cases where the hearings have been finalised and where a decision is pending.
"The idea is to make sure that Tribunal A concludes all cases pending decision in accordance with the given timeframes," a spokesperson for Michael Farrugia has told MaltaToday.
The spokesperson justified the decision to transfer all pending cases to the new board by pointing out that that Tribunal A was in fact not coping with the pending backlog of cases.
"Indeed, there are decisions that should have been delivered in 2012 and for some reason are still pending. This is certainly unacceptable and for this reason, it was decided to shift part of the burden onto Tribunal B by assigning to the latter the remaining backlog."
Despite the appointment of a second tribunal, the MEPA website does not refer to which tribunal each particular case has been assigned.
But the government's spokesperson ruled that such a distinction will be made.
"The Tribunal, as in a Civil or Criminal Court, is considered to be one legal entity in the eyes of law regardless of its composition.
"Tribunals, irrespective of their composition, are regulated by the same procedural and substantial administrative provisions".
In 2011, MEPA announced that the board was contracted on a full-time basis "to further enhance the efficiency and consistency of MEPA's decision-making process" and to avoid "conflicts of interest".
Under the new board, however, the members are being appointed on a part-time basis and will be able to continue exercising their professions. However, they will be expected to abstain from any case in which they may have a conflict of interest, which they will have to declare.
In such cases, where a board member has to abstain from a particular case, the Tribunal members can be replaced by the newly appointed 'substitute members' on the new board.
These include Dr Andy Ellul, a lawyer who made a testimonial for Parliamentary Secretary Michael Farrugia before the last election, and architects Claude Mallia and Ludovico Micallef - the latter a vice-president of the Malta Football Association.