Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1540090
6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 MARCH 2022 OPINION 2 maltatoday EXECUTIVE EDITOR KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Letters to the Editor, MaltaToday, Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 E-mail: dailynews@mediatoday.com.mt Letters must be concise, no pen names accepted, include full name and address maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 OCTOBER 2025 When good intentions are not enough Editorial THE late Michael Falzon, a former Nationalist min- ister, had questioned in an opinion piece published in MaltaToday (6 June 2023), the judiciousness of the Nationalist Party's proposal to make the protection of the environment a human right. At the time the PN had launched a public con- sultation on its proposal before drafting a pri-vate member's bill to amend the Constitution and in- clude the right to "live in a clean, healthy and sus- tainable" environment alongside other fundamen- tal human rights. The parliamentary debate on the PN's proposal was eventually held last Thursday, two years later, and the amendment was rejected after the govern- ment side voted against. In retrospect, Michael Falzon's commentary was a cautionary message that the PN seems to have overlooked at its expense. Falzon had said: "I do not doubt the PN's good intentions behind its pro- posal but one must be careful to avoid launching a process that could generate even many more com- plicated problems. The PN should be careful not to propose the opening of the proverbial Pandora's Box." Falzon had posed several questions back then to highlight the complications he was refer-ring to. We quote from Falzon's opinion piece: "Will the 'right to the environment' of citizen A be consid- ered more important than 'the right to enjoy one's property' of citizen B? The problem is that there are many actions that are subjectively considered to be harmful to the environment while they are not illegal. Should the Constitution protect sub- jective opinions, rather than the right for citizens to have a subjective opinion? Can one breach the Constitution for an act because of a subjective opinion about the effects of one's actions?" Falzon may have appeared to be nit-picking at the time. Using the Constitution to protect the en- vironment has a noble ring to it. But the truth is when the PN bill eventually made it to parliament last Thursday for a debate and vote, Pandora's Box did open up. Opposition to the PN's proposal started pouring in from several unlikely quarters—the Mo-torsport Federation, the Malta Football Association, the Federation of Arms Collectors and Target Shoot- ers (FACTS), the hunting lobby and others in- volved in festas. These organisa-tions all expressed concern over the bill's broad wording, which they interpreted as a possi-ble threat to their sport or hobby. FACTS warned that the broad wording could ex- pose legitimate sporting and recreational or-gan- isations to "frivolous or politically motivated liti- gation". Whether these organisations were pressured to take a public stand against the bill by the gov- ernment is up to them to say. But although it did appear too coincidental that all of a sudden, they woke up on the morning of the debate to express their concern, the points raised, just as the ques- tions put by Falzon two years ago, do have a legiti- mate basis and need to be addressed. No one from the PN, it seems, anticipated this type of opposi- tion from these groups, which makes you wonder what type of consultation process had taken place two years ago. In the face of these developments the PN should have taken a step back, withdrawn the bill and gone back to the drawing board to determine how the concerns raised could be ad-dressed within the constitutional framework. We have no doubt the PN's proposal was well-in- tentioned. It proposed a fix to the ongoing frustra- tion in several localities with rampant construction that denatures communities and the development of virgin land most of which was ironically added to the development zones by a Nationalist govern- ment in 2006. However, it appears that the fix was not thought out well, giving rise to a backlash that in pure numbers is possibly stronger than the sup- port to the bill given by environmental groups. The whole episode should serve as a learning curve for the PN. While environmental pro-tec- tion is important, the social implications of cer- tain decisions can never be underestimat-ed, or ig- nored. On the contrary, they need to be addressed. As for the Labour government, it should be wary of trying to claim any victory of sorts. The truth is, we still have two bills tabled in parliament by the government that risk undermin-ing the little checks and balances that exist today in the plan- ning process, and legal notices intended to regu- larise illegal structures that make very little dis- tinction between venial and mortal sins. At this juncture and within current circumstanc- es, we would rather see existing laws on en-viron- mental protection being enforced and the planning process reformed to ensure the highest protection for the environment and communities through a transparent, clear and just decision-making system rather than lose time on a constitutional amend- ment with sig-nificant complications. Quote of the Week "Today, in Malta we have an environmental crisis." – Opposition leader Alex Borg during the parliamentary debate on the PN's bill to amend the Constitution and introduce the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right. MaltaToday 10 years ago ABUSIVE BUILDING ON PUBLIC FORESHORE? €425,000 DISCOUNT! 3 October 2015 A court order to drop down one of St Julian's most notorious of con struction eyesores, af- ter it abusively extended onto the public fore- shore, was ignored by the previous ad ministra- tion which - documents seen by MaltaToday show - granted the offending developers a mas- sive €425,000 'discount' on the land's or-iginal value. In documents obtained by this newspaper, which inquired over the 2009 court order to demolish the abusive apartment building, Mal taToday learnt that not only were the de- velopers allowed to retain the building that was illegally prntruding onto government land; but that the Government Property De- partment's (GPD) request for a €950,000 sale of the property on government land was de- creased almost by half to €525,000 paid over five years. [...]