The owners of a Santa Venera property which was requisitioned and transformed into a Labour Party club have taken their grievance to court, claiming a breach of their fundamental rights and an annulment of the requisition order. 

The Grech family property had been requisitioned in 1967 and, after lying vacant for over a year, had been transferred to the Labour Party in 1973. The party used the building as a club and paid annual rent of €382, fixed by the Rent Regulation Board. 

The family had already taken their grievances to court and had been awarded compensation to the tune of €75,000 by the First Hall, Civil Court, subsequently reduced to €60,000 on appeal in 2010.

Ten years have passed since that judgment, which found that the director of social housing  had acted beyond his powers. But the family says it still has no real hope of ever gaining “effective possession” of their property or “a real income from the property throughout their life.”

More recent amendments to rental laws did not benefit the owners of such a property which was being used as a club and not as an ordinary dwelling, the applicants pointed out in their judicial act filed in the First Hall, Civil Court in its Constitutional Jurisdiction.

All this amounted to a breach of their personal property right, the 13 applicants argued, adding that they were “being forced to subsidise a political party against their will” effectively forking out more funds than any party member would pay by way of membership fees. 

This breached their right to freedom of association as safeguarded by the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, the Court was told. 

The applicants thus asked the Court to annul the effects of the requisition order and the ensuing lease, as well as to award them adequate compensation and any other appropriate remedy. 

The application was filed against the Attorney General, the Director of Social Housing and the Labour Party. 

Lawyer Claire Bonello signed the act.