Another strand of the reform exercise concerns Article 103 of the Development Planning Act, which has always stood as the central penal clause of the statute. It criminalises unauthorised development, breaches of conditions, contraventions of scheduling and conservation orders, disobedience of enforcement notices, obstruction of officials, and the making of false declarations. Conviction carries not only heavy pecuniary fines but, in specified cases, terms of imprisonment. The courts are also obliged to order removal or rectification of the illegality, backed by continuing daily fines if compliance is not achieved. In this way, Article 103 couples penal liability with restorative obligations, ensuring that offenders do not merely pay a fine but are compelled to undo the illegality.
Before Bill 143, the provision already overlapped uneasily with Article 100. Failure to comply with an enforcement notice could trigger both administrative daily fines under Article 100 and criminal prosecution under Article 103(1)(c). This dual-track approach was questioned in Victor Gusman nomine, where the First Hall Civil Court held that the administrative fines imposed by the Authority were in truth “criminal in nature,” since the very same conduct was simultaneously criminalised under Article 103. The Court considered this to violate constitutional guarantees, particularly given that the fines were imposed by the Authority itself rather than by a court of law, and that the legislation offered no mechanism for an owner to rebut liability when the illegality was committed by occupiers or tenants.
Bill 143 does not abandon the criminal track but intensifies it. Sub-article (2) is amended so that daily fines imposed by the court after conviction rise from a range of €50–€100 per day to €100–€500 per day, thus sharpening the punitive aspect of judicially imposed sanctions. More significantly, the Bill rewrites sub-article (6). Previously, this clause authorised the Authority to impose administrative fines up to €200,000 and continuing daily penalties of €2,000, treating them as civil debts recoverable under Article 466 of the Code of Organization and Civil Procedure. This formulation blurred the line between administrative and criminal sanctions and was one of the main drivers of constitutional uncertainty.
Under the proposed text, sub-article (6) now provides instead that “all fines provided for in this article” are to be treated as civil debts, and once a judicial act under Article 466 COCP is served and left unopposed (or opposition is rejected), the fine shall “constitute an executive title for all intents and purposes.” The change is not cosmetic. It eliminates the Authority’s direct role in imposing administrative fines under Article 103 and reserves the imposition of penalties to the courts. This recasting is intended to cure the constitutional defects identified in earlier jurisprudence by ensuring that what are effectively criminal sanctions are judicially, rather than administratively, imposed.
That said, the drafting retains a conceptual awkwardness. The new sub-article still refers to “the said administrative fine,” even though, once shifted into the judicial sphere, the sanction is no longer administrative but a criminal penalty imposed by a court of law. This suggests that further refinement is needed to avoid confusion and to ensure that the statutory terminology accurately reflects the nature of the sanction. The broader policy direction, however, is unmistakable: Bill 143 seeks to recalibrate enforcement by strengthening the punitive powers of the courts while removing the Authority from a constitutionally contested role as both prosecutor and judge in its own cause.
