Stress Points in Maltese Planning Law

Description

“This is a rigorous contribution to Maltese public law scholarship. Rather than offering a commentary on the Development Planning Act (Cap. 552), Robert Musumeci undertakes a far more ambitious doctrinal audit of the internal architecture of the statute, identifying the precise points at which the coherence of the system is placed under strain. What sets this book apart is its methodological discipline. Each argument is firmly rooted in the statutory text, which illuminates how the jurisprudence of the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal and superior courts have sometimes departed from or blurred the true structure and intention of the statute. The treatment of lapsed Bills 143 and 144 is a useful line of enquiry, using unenacted legislative proposals as tools to expose existing stress points in the current system. Finally, the comparisons with the English and Welsh regime add depth without distracting from the primary focus of the Maltese system. Notably, one of the points of comparison (the mechanism by which unauthorised works achieve immunity) was once the same in England and Wales as Article 95 Development Planning Act, in that immunity was fixed to a point in time, rather than a rolling immunity period. The rolling immunity period was not introduced as a concept in the English and Welsh system until the Planning and Compensation Act 1991.”

Dr Ashley Bowes KC, Landmark Chambers,
general editor, Journal of Planning & Environment Law and
author of A Practical Approach to Planning Law