Current construction regulations are failing to guarantee the public’s safety, the Chamber of Architects has warned after four men working on an excavation site neighbouring Miriam Pace’s home were charged with causing the death, but its developer walked off scot-free.

“All these regulations were designed to do is apportion blame after an accident takes place, while concurrently shifting it away from developers and contractors, who remain unregulated to this day. Instead, they should have been focused on preventing such accidents from happening in the first place,” the Chamber said.

Yesterday, Architect Roderick Camilleri, site technical officer Anthony Mangion, contractor Ludwig Dimech and labourer Nicholas Spiteri were charged with involuntary homicide and other offences. They have all pleaded not guilty.

The arraignment of four men over the death was a stark reminder of “how increasingly complicated and confused the lines of responsibility have become with the coming into force of the new regulations”, the Chamber explained.

“The Court will now have to establish the responsibilities of four different roles, including the STO role which did not exist before.”

“Inevitably, defence lawyers will thrive in this weak regulatory framework,” it said.

The Chamber reiterated calls for the implementation of a robust building and construction regulation framework the government had pledged to start working on in October 2019.

The framework has been endorsed by all the relevant stakeholders.

“The Chamber is perplexed by the statement issued yesterday by the Malta Developers’ Association that the new regulations introduced last summer provided “clear parameters to determine who was responsible for such incidents”.”

“It appears that this was the primary focus of the MDA, rather than ensuring public safety, which has always been the paramount concern of the chamber.”

“Indeed, the chamber fully agrees with the statement which Marthese Portelli, now director-general of MDA, had made at the time the regulations were published, wherein she characterised them as ‘rushed decision-making [which] has set nobody’s mind at ease’,” they said.