In Maltese planning law, statutory time-limits are not mere formalities but essential preconditions to the exercise of jurisdiction. An appeal filed even marginally outside the prescribed time is not irregular—it is void. The rule tempus regit actum governs not only private law acts but applies with full force in administrative procedures where the right to appeal is framed in peremptory terms. Two recent judgments—Benjamin Zammit vs L-Awtorità tal-Ippjanar u Mohib Abouzidan (EPRT, Appell 351/24JB, PA5583/23, decided 29 April 2025) and Roland Camilleri et vs L-Awtorità tal-Ippjanar et (Court of Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction), Appell 26/2023MC, decided 31 January 2024)—illustrate the legal consequences that follow when the appeal period expires, and highlight a deeper, unresolved tension within the law itself: whether the relevant act is the submission (preżentata) or the registry’s formal recording (registrazzjoni).
In Zammit, a third-party appeal was declared null because, although it was filed electronically on the last of the thirty days allowed by Article 13(1) of the Development Planning Act (Chapter 551), it was sent at 22:07—a couple of hours after the registry had closed. The Tribunal invoked Article 32(b) of the same Act, which states in unequivocal terms that electronic submissions made outside the registry’s opening hours are deemed to have been presented on the next working day. Thus, although the appellant sent the appeal on 22 November 2024—the final lawful day—the law treated it as filed on 25 November, fuori termine. The Tribunal concluded that the appeal was null and declined to proceed further. No argument of injustice was entertained. The act of emailing after hours was fatal.
This conclusion follows a strict textual reading. Electronic filing, for all its technological convenience, remains bounded by a legal fiction that equates it with physical submission at the registry. That fiction operates only during registry hours. The document may have reached the Tribunal’s inbox, but in law it was not received until the registry reopened. The act was completed in fact, but not in law.
However, a different consequence followed in Camilleri, where the last day of the appeal period fell on a Saturday. The appellant filed electronically on 5 June 2021—a non-working day. The Tribunal nonetheless applied the same logic as in Zammit, holding that since the registry was closed, the appeal could only be deemed filed on Monday, 8 June, and was therefore late.
On appeal, Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti disagreed. Referring to Article 80(3) of the Development Planning Act (Chapter 552), he observed that the statute requires only that an appeal be presented within thirty days from the date of the Planning Board’s decision. It says nothing of registry processing or administrative marking. Since the appeal had in fact been submitted on the thirtieth day, and there was no factual contestation as to the timing of the email, the Court concluded that it was validly filed. The Tribunal had fallen into error by treating the registry’s internal workflow as determinative of the legal deadline. As the Court put it, “l-artikolu 80(3) ma jitkellimx fuq ir-‘registrazzjoni’ iżda l-‘preżentata’ tal-appell.” That is to say, the act of legal relevance is not the date on which the registry stamps the appeal but the date on which the appellant transmits it to the Tribunal, provided it falls within the time permitted by law.
This distinction is not semantic; it is constitutional. The law vests the right of appeal in the individual, not the registry. If that right is exercised in proper time, it ought not to be lost through administrative formalism. The Court’s reasoning restores agency to the appellant and guards against the creation of procedural traps that would undermine access to justice.
And yet, here lies the unresolved conflict.
The Tribunal, in the recent Zammit case, read Article 32(b) as dispositive, placing emphasis on registrazzjoni—what the registry considers the legal moment of receipt. The said Article 32(b) reads as follows:
‘(1) Notwithstanding any provision of this Act or any other law, the registry of the Tribunal may receive all acts including applications of appeal and replies thereto, by transmission of the original act duly signed, by electronic means and by electronic payment or other means the fee prescribed by law.
(2) The registry of the Tribunal shall issue a copy of the acts filed through electronic means as aforesaid and the said copy issued by the registry of the Tribunal shall, for all intents and purposes of law, be considered as the original.
(3) Acts filed by electronic means shall, for all intents and purposes of law, be deemed as if they have been filed directly in the registry of the Tribunal: Provided that when an act is filed by electronic means outside registry opening hours, such act shall be deemed to have been filed on the first following day of the opening of the said registry.
(4) (a) Without prejudice to the provisions of sub-article (2),the Registry of this Tribunal shall be open for the lodging of acts during the following days and during the following working hours:
Between 1st October and 30th June of each year, from 8.00a.m. to noon and between 1.30p.m. and 3.15p.m. and between 1st July and30th September from 8.00a.m. to noon.
(b) Subject to the provisions of the Environment and Planning Appeals (Procedure) Regulations, the Registry of the Tribunal shall be closed for the lodging of acts on Saturdays and Sundays and on public holidays as provided for in the National Holidays and Other Public Holidays Act.’
The Court in Camilleri, by contrast, emphasised preżentata—what the appellant did and when. The Tribunal applied a fiction to defer the act to the next working day; the Court refused to allow that fiction to defeat a timely submission. Both approaches claim fidelity to the statute. Both cite text. But they point in opposite directions.
Who is right? Is the relevant act the registry’s internal acceptance or the appellant’s outward act of filing? Is the emphasis to fall on procedural symmetry, aligning electronic and physical submissions under registry hours? Or must the law give primacy to substance over form, recognising what was done and when, not when it was marked?
In practical terms, the difference matters profoundly. A submission at 22:07 on a Friday is late, according to Zammit, even though it falls on the last day. A submission on a Saturday is valid, according to Camilleri, because the law requires presentation within a calendar period, not registry recording. Yet both submissions were sent outside registry hours. The only difference was the day of the week.
Unless this interpretive divergence is resolved, legal certainty will suffer.
