An inmate at the Corradino Correctional Facility who was refused permission to marry and then subjected to serious inhuman and degrading treatment, has appealed the “ridiculous” amount of damages awarded by the court.

Yousef Essesi and his girlfriend Meliza Muscat had filed a human rights case in 2019 after former prisons director Lt Col Alex Dalli withdrew permission for them to marry ten days before their big day.

After various attempts to fulfill their wish to marry, the couple finally decided to go public and their plight soon made national headlines.

But after the couple’s lawyers filed the court case and Essesi’s girlfriend spoke about their ordeal during a television interview, the situation became worse for the inmate.

He was transferred to Division 6, known as the ‘punishment’ division, with no explanation.

Essesi was locked up naked inside a cell, with no bedding, no sheet and not even a toilet, having to sleep on the floor, amid his own excrement.

Rights breached

When the case reached judgment stage earlier this month, the First Hall, Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction held that such vindictive treatment amounted to degrading and inhuman punishment.

The couple’s rights had been breached, said the court, awarding Essesi €1000 and Muscat €500 in moral damages respectively.

"Such abuse by persons in authority comes with a low price tag".

However, those amounts were described as “rather ridiculous” by the couple’s lawyers in an appeal application, explaining that the figures certainly did not reflect the gravity of the various breaches suffered.

The first court had concluded that the applicants suffered a breach of their right to marry, the right to private and family life as well as inhuman and degrading punishment and treatment.

Yet, the couple argued that, by awarding such meagre amounts of damages, the court was “unfortunately sending out a wrong message that such abuse by persons in authority comes with a low price tag.”

Essesi did not only suffer physically, but he was also subjected to “most serious psychological harm” as a vulnerable person, under the “absolute control” of the person meting out such abuse, they said. 

The series of punishments were intended to “break” him, making him succumb to the authority of the prison director.

Essesi was cut off from all contact with the outside world, his personal mail was confiscated, and he was barred from marrying his girlfriend who waited anxiously for news of the inmate.

Such “deplorable behaviour” amounted to most serious abuse which should have been reflected in the awarded damages, argued the lawyers, drawing parallels with similar cases brought before the European Court where the awards were much higher. 

Lawyers Edward Gatt, Mark Vassallo and Shaun Zammit signed the appeal that was filed before the Constitutional Court.