Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1531651
3 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 22 JANUARY 2025 NEWS NICOLE MEILAK nmeilak@mediatoday.com.mt NO part of Gżira's Council of Europe Garden will be used to relocate a petrol station, the lands ministry said after a civil court rejected an appeal to an- nul the permit. On 15 January, the civil court rejected the Gżira local council's appeal to annul a permit that relocates the petrol station near Manoel Island to an area near the Council of Europe Garden. While the ministry acknowl- edged this judgement, it said that it will stand by its position that no public land in the area will be used to relocate the pet- rol station. "The Gżira garden should serve as an open space that can be en- joyed by everyone," the minis- try's statement says. This case concerns a an appli- cation presented in 1999 to relo- cate the petrol station on Gżira's waterfront to an area some 100m further up the same road. Originally, the petrol pump and an adjacent kiosk had to be relocated because of a proposed road project linking the Strand to Regional Road, but the con- troversial project was aborted. Yet the application was ap- proved 20 years later during a PA planning commission meet- ing. Initial appeals filed by the Gżira council to the Environ- ment and Planning Review Tri- bunal and the Court of Appeal were turned down. This caused a rift between Gżira's mayor at the time, Con- rad Borg Manche, and the La- bour Party in government. Man- che was a member of the Labour Party at the time, but went on to resign from the party citing a de- parture from socialist principles. Eventually, the administrative review tribunal revoked a deci- sion by the Lands Authority to take back part of the Gżira gar- den. The authority wanted to take away 930sq.m of land from the Council of Europe Garden on the Gzira promenade to give it to the owner of a petrol sta- tion. Ministry upholds commitment to preserve Gzira garden after court rejects council's appeal Lands ministry says Council of Europe Garden should serve as an open space, despite a civil court rejecting the local council's bid to annul the relocation permit An existing petrol station will be transferred into part of the public garden CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Nonetheless, Sanchez failed to pay the expenses and the Court Registrar filed a court application to convert the amount into 2,004 days in pris- on. This meant that Sanchez faced the prospect of spending six more years in jail. Judge Spiteri Bailey noted that the Criminal Code gave the Court Registrar "absolute dis- cretion" to determine the man- ner by which a pending court bill should be enforced. The law states that a pending bill can either be converted into a civil debt or converted into jail time at a rate of €11.65 per day. He also noted that the law gave the court no discretion to determine the length of the jail term when it is petitioned by the Registrar to convert a pending bill into prison time. "This breaches the principle of proportionality," the judge said, ruling that the provision in the Criminal Code breached human rights as enshrined in the Constitution and the Eu- ropean Convention for Human Rights. The judge did not award mor- al damages given that the con- version of court expenses into jail time has not yet happened because the Magistrate's Court was waiting for the constitu- tional proceedings to end. However, he did acknowl- edge that when Sanchez's case would come again before the Magistrate's Court, the mag- istrate would have their hands tied unless the Criminal Code is amended. The judge ordered that the ruling be communi- cated to the Justice Minister to draft the necessary legal chang- es. Despite the legal victory, law- yers for Sanchez are expected to appeal the judgment since the Constitutional Court gave no "effective remedy" despite acknowledging that the lower court would still have its hands tied unless the law is changed. As things stand, Sanchez still runs the risk of having the court expenses converted in- to six more years of jail de- spite the law being declared in breach of human rights. Sanchez was represented in the constitutional case by law- yers Kevin Dingli and Suzanne Shaw. 'This breaches the principle of proportionality'