Under the current Article 57 of the Development Planning Act (Cap. 552), the law allows the Executive Council, and in some cases the Environment and Resources Authority, to schedule properties of geological, archaeological, architectural, historical, or ecological importance for protection through a scheduling order. Owners can thereafter request reconsideration within thirty days or appeal to the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal. Still, there is no explicit statutory procedure for descheduling a property once listed—making scheduling, in practice, a largely permanent measure.
Bill No. 143 of 2025 proposes four main changes. First, it will require that the list of scheduling orders, together with any amendments, be made available on the Authority’s website as well as in the Gazette and a local newspaper. Second, it will introduce a dedicated descheduling mechanism, allowing an owner to apply in writing, requiring a decision within twelve months, and prohibiting repeat applications unless there is a material change in circumstances. Third, it will relocate the existing reconsideration procedure into a new sub-article (11), preserving the thirty-day limit. Fourth, it will extend the current “no-stay” rule to descheduling and downgrading decisions, so they take immediate effect despite pending appeals.
These changes give stautory form to what administrative law already implies: the power to schedule necessarily carries with it the power to deschedule. Without such flexibility, the legislative aim—protecting genuinely significant heritage—becomes distorted, forcing continued protection of properties whose integrity or significance has been lost. As the Barker Review of Land Use Planning (2006) observed in the planning context, systems that cannot adapt to changing evidence or values privilege certainty over responsiveness [1]. In practice, heritage governance works best as a cyclical process, with listing and delisting operating as two parts of the same evaluative exercise to keep registers accurate and credible.
The Bill’s bifurcation of “reconsideration” (short-term challenge to an initial decision) and “descheduling” (long-term review of continued appropriateness) is sound legislative drafting, avoiding procedural confusion. More so, the addition of online publication, while modest, improves transparency and aligns with modern expectations of accessibility.
Meanwhile, it is good to note that Maltese case law has long recognized that descheduling has long been treated as a routine and lawful corollary of scheduling. For example, in Vincent Curmi et noe vs Casma Limited et (15 September 2014, per Zammit McKeon J.), the court noted without controversy that the building known as the Merkanti Suite—originally scheduled in the Government Gazette of 5 December 1995—had been descheduled just over a year later, on 14 February 1997, through a published notice. The descheduling was accepted by all parties as procedurally and legally effective, and it cleared the way for redevelopment proposals. No argument was advanced that such removal from the schedule exceeded the Authority’s powers; rather, it was treated as a matter-of-fact administrative act. This illustrates that, even before the reforms of Bill No. 143, Maltese practice has operated on the implied “power to do and to undo,” with descheduling seen as an inherent part of heritage management
Yet, the only area where caution is warranted is in the extension of the “no-stay” rule to descheduling. While this change prevents tactical delays, it also risks the removal of protection before the Tribunal can review the merits. In heritage law, irreversible loss is qualitatively different from the denial of a development opportunity: once a protected structure is altered or demolished, the harm cannot be undone, even if an appeal later succeeds. This asymmetry is reflected in precautionary principles across environmental and cultural property law, which favour maintaining the status quo until independent review is complete. One might consider that delisting decisions are automatically suspended pending appeal to avoid precisely this kind of irreversible outcome.
[1] Barker, K. (2006). Barker Review of Land Use Planning: Interim Report. HM Treasury.
