How high is the defence of private property in the government’s scale of values?

“The gating of the fort and of the surrounding areas has ensured that the island stopped being used for drug parties and prostitution as it used to be when it was free. ”

The events of the past weeks ought to have raised serious questions in Malta as to how much is the government strong in its belief on the sanctity and inviolability of private property. On the weekend before the last, a motley group of persons broke down the gates encircling Fort Manoel on Manoel Island and proclaimed they had freed the fort and the seashore from being an enclave of the rich and the elite. Sadly, the young adventurers were joined in their escapade by more mature persons who should have known better. The video of the breaking of the chains and padlocks also included voices (clearly identifiable) telling people to crowd in so that they all share the eventual liability or better still not become identifiable. Clearly, the breaking-in was extremely popular especially with the people of Gzira who up to 16 years ago were able to freely roam the entire island and who have been locked out for the past 16 years, with next to no reprieve. It was only a week later, when the activists returned to do a ‘clean-up’ of the island that they found a substantial police presence to prevent a repetition of the break-in. Now Malta is full of abandoned buildings, where anyone can break in, including hotels, fortresses, barracks and what not. But the Manoel Island activists wanted to break in only here. This island has been handed over to MIDI by means of a contract for 99 years. MIDI has spent million in the restoration of Fort Manoel. The gating of the fort and of the surrounding areas has ensured that the island stopped being used for drug parties and prostitution as it used to be when it was free. Does that make it private property? Of course it does. It is just as if the area has been rented out. Now imagine if you rented an apartment but some hippies take a shine to it and desire it and they end by breaking in. Should the police stand by? Should not the perpetrators be prosecuted? And if the police authorities and the courts of law stand idly by and do nothing much would not that be serious dereliction of their duty to protect private property? Now someone might argue that MIDI promised to do the restoration work on Manoel Island and to finish it by some years ago. True, but in that case the original agreement surely had clauses of penalties that were to be invoked for non-completion of the restoration works, and these penalties should have been invoked and imposed. But the absence of these penalties gave no one the right to break in. The more mature persons who took part in this jape should be ashamed of themselves for breaking the law, even in a crowd, must not be countenanced by respectable people. If they perceived that the shores of Manoel Island were unreachable by land in virtue of the recent constitutional amendment on the national shoreline, they should have taken the matter to court. That is how lawabiding citizens act. This should also be an eyeopener to us all, for what looked like a good proposition in 1990 when the business model was set up and the Development Brief issued, does not seem to make much sense today. To have the many old buildings in Manoel Island still standing forlornly derelict does not speak highly of our ability to do things. Certainly our forefathers who built the bastion, those who died in its defence, deserve much better.