A judge has provisionally upheld an application for an injunction to stop the Land Department from evicting caravan owners from the land on which they have been squatting at Little Armier, in Mellieħa.

Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon yesterday temporarily upheld the owners’ request and gave the department until Friday to file an official reply. The court sitting will be held on Monday.

In the meantime, last week’s deadline imposed by the department for the caravan owners to leave their properties has been superseded by the court order.

The owners of 13 caravans and boathouses were served with eviction notices to vacate their properties, which the department claims they have been occupying illegally.

They complained their rooms had been in place since the early 1980s and they could not remove them without demolishing them. These rooms, they said, were well equipped with beds, kitchens, water and electricity. The owners also claimed that in April 2003, the government had entered into an agreement with Armier Development Ltd, binding itself that rooms which had been set up before 1992 would not be demolished.

The government also promised to transfer the land to Armier Development Ltd on temporary emphyteusis within six months of receiving permits issued by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

The owners argued that their permit applications before Mepa were still pending and that the Commissioner for Land had discriminated against them because there were many other rooms in the vicinity that had not been served with any eviction order. This order, they said was, therefore, abusive and could not be issued.