End of the line for land squatters?

Abstract

Last week, MP Jason Azzopardi unveiled in Parliament, on behalf of the Opposition, a Bill that aspires to put its finger on what actually constitutes the ‘public domain’. Normally, this phrase is reserved for information that has been released for public consumption, but the Bill in question has natural, cultural, archaeological, architectural and historical connotations in mind. In fact, the Bill identifies a list of features that it considers to fall squarely within the public domain, namely the seabed, subsoil and the foreshore. The Bill opens the door for NGOs and interested parties to make the case for inclusion of other sites and assets to be included in the public domain list, such as valleys, woods, fortifications, nature reserves, squares, and so forth. The incentive to add a site or asset to the public domain list is considerable, since the Bill entrenches unfettered public access to anything on the public domain list, staving off any commercial or private interest unless previously enshrined through public deed.