The dispossessed owners of two requisitioned properties handed over to the Labour Party in 1980 to house its Birżebbuġa club have filed a case for damages, requesting the eviction of the current tenants.

In their constitutional application, Franco Grima and the Ellul Sullivan family, as owners of the “Smiling Prince” in Pretty Bay and a next door property in Triq id-Duluri, claim they have been receiving a miserly annual rent of €1,164.90, a far cry from the current rental value which stands at around €3,000 per month.

The applicants’ predecessors in title had leased out the premises before 1979 as a hotel and were later faced with a requisition order for the property to be taken over by the government to be used as a telephone exchange and, subsequently, as a health clinic.

However, a letter from the Housing Minister, dated September 11, 1980, had informed the owners that the keys were being handed over to the Housing Authority so that the Labour Party could step in as the new tenant.

The owners had no choice but to accept the PL as their new tenant, a situation that was forced upon them in view of the fact that the property was still subject to the requisition order.

Nor could the owners benefit from the 2009 amendments to the local rent laws, since these did not apply to premises used as clubs.

This meant that, in spite of the upward-spiraling rental market value, the owners of the property suffered as the result of “an enormous discrepancy between the annual rent and the income which the property would have earned them on the free market”.

Although the original lease was for six years, the rent had been renewed annually since 1986, which renewal the owners had no right to refuse.

Faced with such a situation, the applicants declared that they had ‘no real hope’ of ever regaining effective possession of their property and were turning to the courts claiming a breach of their fundamental rights.

Citing a number of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights in favour of Maltese citizens in similar circumstances, the family requested the court to declare that they had been denied the right to the full enjoyment of their property.

Moreover, there was a lack of ‘fair balance’ between the interests of the community and the rights of the applicants, who were also at a disadvantage when compared to owners who rented out property after 1995 and who had the right to refuse renewal once the lease was up.

The applicants asked the court to declare a breach of rights, liquidate damages and order the eviction of the Labour Party from the premises.

Lawyers Edward DeBono and Karl Micallef signed the application.