The 2021 Cultural Heritage Act builds on Act VI 2002 and establishes a comprehensive framework for the legal protection of cultural heritage in Malta and the Islands. It provides the definitions for technical terms, i.e. “cultural heritage” and “cultural property”, and it defines the scope of application of the act: namely, movable and immovable objects of artistic, historical, archaeological, ethnographic, palaeontological and geological importance.
The Act establishes the competent bodies, defines specific roles and distributes powers among relevant authorities, mainly the National Council for Cultural Heritage, the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage (SCH) and Heritage Malta, the national agency responsible for museum and UNESCO world heritage sites management, along with others.
Additionally, the 2021 Act establishes protective measures and its guiding principles, among the most important ones, the non-destructive investigation methods and the importance of qualified personnel are mentioned.
Concerning International Law, the act provides for the alignment of national law to international conventions and it authorises the government to ratify the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on stolen or illegally exported cultural objects. Moreover, the Act provides a set of specific regulations for religious cultural heritage management.
On the level of administrative law, the Cultural Heritage Act regulates administrative procedures related to the Right of Appeal.
