Law Blog

The Xagħra judgment (Court of Appeal, Inferior Jurisdiction, 15 October 2025, App. 9/2025) clarifies an increasingly common scenario: after a first appeal decision, may third parties later file a fresh appeal to re-argue earlier issues when the Authority re-issues a second permit on the same site? The answer is no. What res judicata seals at […]

There are few areas of Maltese civil law where the distance between logic and law has become so embarrassingly visible as in the interpretation of Article 426 of the Civil Code. The provision is simple enough: when the storeys of a building belong to different owners, each may open balconies or windows in the external […]

Some argue that a planning permit is only a conditional authorisation — a momentary administrative favour that may dissolve ‘as it may be deemed appropriate’. Others – myself included – hold that once a permit is validly issued, it crystallises into a lawful possession that the State cannot retract except through lawful means. In the […]

There is a claim in public debate that Bill No. 144 of 2025 “kills” the courts’ power in planning appeals. Yet, I always insisted that such claim is a total untruth in the sense that the Bill clarifies—rather than curtails—the Court of Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction)’s supervisory function over the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal. Indeed, […]

The recurring call for the “revision of Local Plans” is often presented as a sweeping reform, but in truth the real substance lies primarily in just two matters. The first concerns ODZ boundaries: whether to extend development zones as happened in 2006 with the rationalization excercise or, conversely, to restore undeveloped rationalised land back to […]