Malta’s old rent laws have yet again been declared unconstitutional because they allowed for a “forced landlord-tenant relationship” for an indefinite period of time and at a rate far below market value.

The court ordered the State to pay the property owner €20,000 in compensation.

This is the umpteenth time that the court has found the old rent laws – which were amended about 10 years ago but still apply to rental agreements drawn up before that – to be in breach of landlords’ fundamental right to the enjoyment of their property. 

Madam Justice Anna Felice was this time ruling on a case instituted by Emanuel Ciantar, the proprietor of a large warehouse in Marsa which was being rented out for a measly €2.91 a day. 

The going rate for a warehouse this big – 377 square metres – in a prime commercial zone is between €30 and €50 a day. 

The First Hall of the Civil Court, in its constitutional jurisdiction, heard that in October 1975, Mr Ciantar’s father rented the garage in Simpson Street to Grech and Co. Ltd at a fixed daily rate equivalent to €1,048 annually. 

Mr Ciantar told the court that when he inherited the massive warehouse he had tried to get the company to revise the rent. In 2001, he sent an official letter requesting an increase to €11.65 a day. But the company refused. 

In 2004, the Rent Regulation Board, whose approval was needed by law to raise the rent, decided against an increase. 

Mr Ciantar, therefore, called on the court to declare that restrictions imposed by the Reletting of Urban Property (Regulation) Ordinance, originally enacted in June 1931, was in breach of his fundamental rights, mainly the right to enjoyment of his property with-out interference. 

Madam Justice Felice quoted European case law which laid down that any interference with property had to satisfy the requirement of proportionality. 

She said a fair balance must be struck between the general interest of the community and protection for the individual’s fundamental rights.

Mr Ciantar, the court said, had been subjected to a forced landlord-tenant relationship for an indefinite period. 

The court declared that the reletting law was in breach of the Constitution and of the European Convention of Human Rights and awarded the owner compensation from the State.

It did not enter into the merits of the amount of rent that should be paid.