Planning disputes often drift away from law and into atmosphere, where allegations of “conflict of interest” are motivated solely by hypothetical discomfort.
A particular decision of the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal in a recent case involving the permit renewal of a Maghtab farm is a useful reminder.
It was argued – by the objectors – that a member of the Planning Commission, Mr Caruana Cachia, ought to have been disqualified because of his earlier involvement in the same application through the Department of Agriculture, including technical endorsement of drawings and evidence given in prior proceedings.
The Tribunal was however right to reject that submission on the basis that the Department of Agriculture’s role is consultative and technical. More so, performing that function does not create a personal interest in the planning outcome, nor does it compromise independence.
In other words, conflict of interest requires something real and demonstrable.
What gives the decision its broader value is its refusal to dilute the test of objective impartiality. The standard is not hypothetical discomfort or retrospective unease. It requires evidence capable of showing that judgment was genuinely compromised. To lower that threshold would be to turn allegations of bias into a tactical device, destabilising lawful decisions whenever they prove unpopular. The Tribunal’s reasoning deserves endorsement precisely because it resists that drift.
Planning law is not a forum for rhetorical grievances; it is a system governed by rules, thresholds, and proof.
