Forgive and forget…

You’ve got to love Malta, though. Such a kind, compassionate place. A veritable bastion of the traditional Christian creed, ‘forgive and forget’... always so eager to ‘forgive’, in fact, that it very often ‘forgets’ about that tiny, weenie inconvenient little responsibility facing every country in the civilised world: the responsibility to administer justice and the rule of law.

That, I fear, has always been the fly in the ‘Christian forgiveness’ ointment. Forgiveness is all well and good on a personal human level – certainly far preferable to vindictiveness, which is by and large the only other option – but the dynamics of how a State functions are very different from the dynamics of human psychology. 

As individual members of the human race, we are often brought up to believe – rightly, on the whole – that forgiveness is part of a process that leads to serenity and peace of mind. With governments and State institutions, however, the very opposite is often true. It is the government’s willingness to overlook certain offences (but not others) that permanently undermines our collective faith in the machinery of justice. People who have experienced the short end of the legal stick, on any issue, would be entirely justified in asking why the law came down on them like a tonne of bricks… while others guilty of more serious offences were let off the hook altogether.

Forgiveness, at this level, actually corrodes the public’s peace of mind. And it is Malta’s endless tendency to ‘forgive’ any illegalities which it can’t control, that has reduced the entire concept of ‘the rule of law’ to the status of a national joke.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the planning sector (though this is by no means the only example: tax evasion is another textbook case, though I’ll have to save it for another time). This week, the Planning Authority announced yet another amnesty for buildings that are in breach of planning policies: the umpteenth such amnesty granted over the past 30 or so years.

How does it work? Very simply, as it happens. If you are the owner of a property which is partially or totally illegal, and as a consequence are finding it hard to sell that property… you can avail of a one-time (ahem) amnesty to get your illegality retroactively sanctioned by the PA… against payment of a small environmental fee, of course.

Ah, the beauty of forgiveness! In true Christian spirit, we are always perfectly willing to forgive and forget… provided we also get to hear the little chink of coins landing in our coffers. It’s a bit like the Catholic Church’s former attitude towards the sale of indulgences, I suppose. For a small fee – oops! sorry, ‘donation’ – you can simply buy your way out of planning regulations, just like rich Catholics were once told they could buy their way out of Purgatory.

I could just stop there, and already the injustice would be blatantly visible. What about those who can’t actually afford to regularise their irregularities? What about the ones who can’t buy a Get Out of Jail free card?

Just imagine the same scenario applied to virtually any other sphere of wrongdoing. Two people are separately charged with an identical crime – for argument’s sake, pick-pocketing – but because one can afford to pay for a State pardon, while the other can’t, only one of the two actually ends up facing the consequences of his/her actions.  

Where’s the justice in that?

But that would merely skim the surface of the aberration of justice now staring us all in the face. No need to put your thinking caps on for this one: Deborah Schembri, who announced the amnesty on behalf of the government, did all the spadework for us.

“The ideal would be for everyone to follow the law from the start… The reality is that if we were to enforce every single illegality, we’d have to knock down three quarters of the buildings in the country.”

OK, let’s take the thought process to its logical conclusion. The law is there to be observed by everyone. But when the law is broken in sufficient numbers – numbers too large for a country’s law enforcement capability to do anything about – then: hey presto! Suddenly, a law that was enforced with impunity until yesterday, is simply waived aside altogether. 

And of course, there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. For no sooner does this umpteenth amnesty expire in a couple of years’ time, than we will immediately revert to the previous regime. Remember? The one whereby all development, of any kind whatsoever, has to be covered by a valid permit, or face a PA enforcement notice…

For this, we have Schembri’s word: “By setting a clear cut-off date, we are sending a signal that enforcement will be strictly applied going forward. If you build now, we will enforce. Nobody has an excuse.

Erm… hate to be the one to point this out, but: given the fact that countless other analogous decisions have been taken over the past 30 years, resulting in the retroactive sanctioning of numerous illegal buildings – what guarantee can there possibly be that Schembri’s government won’t issue other, similar amnesties in future?

Sorry, folks, but you all know it as well as I do. This latest amnesty does not establish any kind of ‘demarcation line’ at all. It cannot be construed as a ‘final warning’ before the chopper comes down… for the simple reason that the government which issued it doesn’t actually have any alternative when faced with rampant planning abuse on this scale. 

And we now have it straight from the horse’s mouth. The government itself considers law enforcement to be an impossible pipe-dream, when applied to construction and development. The authorities might be very strict when it comes to Norwegian teenagers skinny dipping in St George’s Bay… but when it comes to demolishing a building that was built illegally, we are suddenly told that law enforcement can only ever truly work in the realm of fantasy. 

What does this actually mean? To me, it means that the ‘real world’ is a place where laws are only enforced when it’s not too much of a hassle for the authorities concerned. So little, sporadic isolated irregularities here and there… those generally get the book thrown at them. Great big sprawling illegalities covering large portions of the island, on the other hand – 75% of all Malta’s built environment, if Schembri’s example was meant literally – are routinely given the chance to ‘regularise’ themselves against payment… which also means the authority that is meant to stop such abuse from taking place, is actually encouraging it.

That brings us to the other fly in the ‘forgiveness’ ointment. When people tell you that forgiveness is beneficial… well, they are not exactly lying; but they are not telling you the whole truth either.

The person who most benefits from forgiveness is clearly the one who forgives: more even than the forgiven, who generally comes away with the idea that it’s Ok to do the same thing again… and again and again (wasn’t it Christ himself who set a limit of ‘seven times seventy’ for the number of times we should be ready to forgive? Has anyone stopped to consider the possible consequences if we all actually followed that advice…?)

But forgiveness can have very serious consequences for third parties. That includes all those who may fall victim to the same crime committed by the person who was so liberally forgiven… and who was therefore led to believe that his or her actions will never entail any real consequences. 

Who, then, are the victims of the ‘real world’ scenario depicted by Deborah Schembri? For starters, they include the ones who have to put up with the consequences of this government’s short-term (myopic, even) attitude towards environmental justice. The ones who actually care about the rule of law, and who argue that the greater the infringement, the more urgently the law should be enforced (in other words, the clean opposite of the present government’s official planning policy… which is to simply throw in the towel at the first major obstacle).

Besides: this amnesty did not come about in a vacuum. It must be viewed against the backdrop of three years’ worth of erosion of all other planning laws and institutions. The same government which now offers blanket forgiveness to those who can afford it – an entirely ‘Socialist’ way of doing things, by the way, as I’m sure you’ll all agree – has also just revised policies to permit ODZ reconstruction of ‘former dwellings’… clearing the way for old countryside ruins to be converted into ODZ villas. 

It has also divested the Planning Authority of any responsibility towards the environment… a responsibility which now falls to an ‘Environment and Resources Authority’ that proved ‘missing in action’ at its first major engagement. If that were not enough, the government is now even considering connecting illegal boathouses in Gnejna (Armier having already been sanctioned by the previous government) to the electricity grid… which is just another way of sanctioning illegalities, even in the absence of an amnesty.

What, then, is the message the present government is sending out with regard to illegal development in Malta? According to Deborah Schembri, it is that: ‘nobody should plan on building illegally in the hopes of regularising under a similar scheme’. 

I would say it’s the complete reverse, actually. ‘Planning on building illegally? Well, go right ahead. Everyone else got away it in the past, why shouldn’t you? Oh, and don’t worry about all the conditions specified by your PA permit. That’s just for show. Build whatever the heck you like… but just make sure you put a little something extra aside, in case you need to buy your way out of enforcement someday…’

But not to worry, folks! We’re a Christian country, remember? Everything will be forgiven and forgotten in due course, as has always been the case in the past. Which also means that the only ones who will truly benefit are the ‘forgivers’ and the ‘forgiven’. As for the rest of us out here… the real victims of this travesty of justice… well, we don’t actually count, do we?