Cap. 445 Art. 4Principles and duties.

(1) The provisions of the following sub-articles of this article and of the other articles of this Part shall not be enforceable in any court of law, however the principles therein contained are fundamental to the protection of the cultural heritage and it shall be the aim of the State to apply the same and to be guided thereby.

(2) Every citizen of Malta as well as every person present in Malta shall have the duty of protecting the cultural heritage as well as the right to benefit from this cultural heritage through learning and enjoyment. The cultural heritage is an asset of irreplaceable spiritual, cultural, social and economic value, and its protection and promotion are indispensable for a balanced and complete life.

(3) The State in Malta shall have the duty of establishing and maintaining administrative and regulatory structures of superintendence so as to ensure that this heritage is protected and conserved, as well as such other structures as are required for the management of the care, exposition and appreciation of this heritage.

(4) The duty to protect includes the duty to document, conserve, maintain, restore and includes the duty to intervene whenever deemed fit, including in circumstances of misuse, lack of conservation or application of wrong conservation methods. Such duty to protect also includes the duty to encourage the sustainable use and maintenance of the cultural heritage resource, in accordance with the principles of integrated conservation, including that of:

(a) encouraging the integration of conservation and management practices with respect to cultural heritage at all levels of government, local government, the private sector and voluntary sector;

(b) ensuring that conservation, management and other initiatives affecting cultural heritage take account of policies of social inclusion;

(c) ensuring that conservation, land planning and other initiatives affecting cultural heritage areas take into account the social fabric of existing communities and strive to improve the living conditions for all levels of society. Such initiatives should ensure, where possible, that they do not precipitate negative changes to the social fabric of the population of any given locality intervened upon;

(d) promoting public awareness of the richness and extent of cultural heritage as an intrinsic part of humankind’s environment, and of the need to prevent the debasement of cultural heritage assets upon which depends the quality of that same environment, and of the cultural, economic and social reasons justifying its protection;

(e) taking into consideration the special problems of cultural heritage conservation, maintenance and management in anti-pollution policies;

(f) promoting fiscal and financial policies aimed at encouraging owners of cultural heritage to maintain, conserve, protect and make good use of such property.

(5) The duty to make accessible includes the duty to exhibit, to research, to render accessible for research, study and enjoyment, the cultural heritage and to promote knowledge, appreciation and awareness of this heritage within the principle of social inclusion. The right of access to, and benefit from, the cultural heritage does not belong merely to the present generation. Every generation shall have the duty to protect this heritage and to make it accessible for future generations and for all mankind.