This thread should be nominated for the best of Hacker news.
Absolutely not. There is no enforcement mechanism to punish them if they chose not to enforce the listed building rules.
In the sense that they are the enforcement mechanism of the law it's true that they can probably just ignore the law to a point, but it's no use pretending that there isn't a legal stricture here.
(I'm a policy opponent of historic preservation, which is a major impediment to housing reform, but even I don't pretend that it simply doesn't exist.)
Agreed, btw - I think the only method of preservation should be market purchase, to force the right tradeoffs.
Just to be clear, you're asking the Ministry of Justice, the department responsible for maintaining the court system, to break the law? I can't think how that could have horrendous long-term consequences...
There are tons of laws they simply don't enforce. This would be one more.