Tomorrow, February 13, marks the 80th anniversary of the deportation of a group of Maltese to Uganda during World War II. Their saga has been described in several books published since then, particularly Sir Arturo Mercieca’s autobiography Le Mie Vicende and Herbert Ganado’s best-selling memoirs Rajt Malta Tinbidel. Few have, however, examined in detail the legal aspects of this event.

On the pretext of their alleged pro-Italian sympathies, several leading personalities in Maltese society, including the chief justice, Sir Arturo Mercieca, the leader of the opposition, Enrico Mizzi, the president of Catholic Action, Herbert Ganado and the Cathedral Chapter dean, Monsignor Alberto Pantalleresco, along with others ranging from leading members of the Maltese intelligentia, such as Chevalier Vincenzo Bonello, to workers and clerks in public or private employment, were interned without trial and without being charged with any offence a few days prior to Italy’s declaration of war against the Allies in June 1940.

They were detained in different locations and finally ended up at St Agatha’s, Rabat. So long as they were ‘merely’ detained, no legal action was instituted by them, presumably in the light of the House of Lords judgment during that same year which ruled that the discretion of a government at war in taking precautionary measures for security reasons during wartime should not be unduly disturbed.

In February 1942, however, the colonial authorities decided to deport around 43 of the internees to Uganda. The ‘legal’ justification for such a far-reaching measure was based on the defence regulations which permitted the governor to detain for reasons of security any person at any place he might deem fit. That, according to the governor, meant also any place outside Malta. The internees successfully instituted an administrative law action challenging such an interpretation. The case was decided by Mr Justice Anthony Montanaro Gauci, former secretary of the pro-British political party, who valiantly and correctly declared that the powers of the British governor were limited by territory and he had no power to detain anyone except within the confines of Maltese territory.

The Council of Government, as the limited local colonial legislature, then hurriedly and urgently passed a law allowing such deportation. The debate relating to this law remains enshrined in Malta’ s political history.

Former prime minister Sir Ugo Mifsud delivered an outstanding and unforgettable speech. He referred to “the fundamental rights of the individual”, a hardly known legal concept at that time; he fell ill, dying very shortly later, while delivering his address defending the internees and challenging the validity of a law which was going to deport British subjects from their country of birth.

While the appeal was still being heard, the internees were deported from Malta- Tonio Borg

The law even provided that no judicial proceedings which might be instituted could suspend any such deportation. George Borg Olivier, a 29-year-old backbencher was the only one left from the Nationalist opposition side to vote against the bill, requesting a division at every stage.

The internees instituted a second legal action. This time the court of first instance declared that, once a special law had been enacted, the deportation was in order. The plaintiffs filed an appeal. While the appeal was still being heard, precisely on February 13, 1942, the internees were deported from Malta. Sometime after they arrived on the African continent, they received the good news that the Court of Appeal had upheld their appeal application and declared their deportation to have been unlawful.

His Majesty’s Court of Appeal at that time was presided over by Chief Justice Sir George Borg (former deputy-leader of the pro-British party) along with two other judges, Mr Justice Luigi Camilleri and Mr Justice William Harding. The highest court in Malta at that time ruled that no colonial legislature could order the deportation of any British subject from Malta. Only the Imperial Parliament in London could do so.

The deportees thought that they would be repatriated in the light of this final judgment by His Majesty’s judges. Instead, they remained unlawfully detained and deported until March 1945 – a full three years after their deportation had been declared illegal by His Majesty’s Courts in May 1942. It is pertinent to point out that not a single British citizen was deported from the United Kingdom during the war.

Even Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Fascist Party, was interned, along with his wife, Diana, in the UK, not deported overseas. Indeed, he and his wife, who happened to be Clementine Churchill’s cousin, were released in 1943 at the insistence of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who justified his intervention on the basis that the immediate threat of invasion was over.

The Maltese deportees, on the other hand, were kept abroad until the end of the war in Europe even though, in 1943, with the surrender of Italy, the threat of invasion had subsided.

So not only were the Maltese deportees kept in detention in spite of His Majesty’s judges declaring their exile to be illegal but they were kept away from their families even when a defeated Italy no longer posed any threat to Malta.

Probably that was one of the disadvantages of being a colony!

Read an interview with the son of one of the internees in The Sunday Times of Malta, published tomorrow, on the 80th anniversary of the exile of the 42 Maltese leading intellectuals.

European Court of Human Rights judge emeritus Giovanni Bonello recalls the day his father, Vincenzo, the man who founded the fine arts section within the Museums Department and which later became the National Museum of Fine Arts, was arrested at his Valletta home.

You can also log on to www.timesofmalta.com to watch Bonello explain why the men were interned.