A judge has strongly denounced the “blatant abuse of the judicial and legal system”, with the complicity of lawyers, to delay court action, especially when related to housing matters.

Mr Justice Francesco Depasquale was ruling in a case instituted by Valletta resident Alfred Zammit and his wife who are being evicted from a Merchant Street apartment they obtained decades ago through the Housing Authority and who claimed a breach of their human rights.

The court heard how the Zammits were awarded the property in the mid-1970s after the Housing Authority had requisitioned the property from its owners in 1963.

In December 1975, Zammit signed a contract over the property but never paid rent. It was only in 2007 that the authority wrote to Zammit regarding the overdue payments but this, as well as a reminder the following year, were ignored.

In 2009, the entire block was derequisitioned and the owners successfully fought a legal battle against the state which, through the old rent laws, deprived them of their right to the enjoyment of their property.

The owners won the case and were awarded €180,000 in compensation.

Zammit filed a case in the constitutional court claiming that his right to a fair trial had been breached because he was not informed about the compensation claim filed by the owners.

But Mr Justice Depasquale threw out the complaint, saying it was evident that the case was filed to delay the execution of the eviction order.

“The court must point out that these proceedings are extremely abusive and the constitutional court is being used only as a tool to keep the applicants residing inside a property on which they have no title and for which they paid absolutely nothing for 30 years and have now been evicted from it,” the judge said.

He added that he “has no doubt” that the decision will be appealed “to win more time” and maybe they will even try their luck in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to win more time.

“This is a blatant abuse of the judicial and legal system, with the assistance of legal advisers willing to facilitate such abuse. The court condemns all those involved in such abuse without reservations,” the judge said.

The court observed that the Zammits only started paying a fraction of the rent they were due to pay after the property was derequisitioned and when they knew that they were on their way out.

“This is nothing other than desperate action by a person who claimed to have a God-given right to occupy a property of a third party without paying anything and who, as soon as he realised he had lost everything, tried to save the situation by paying a small part of what he should have paid – an attempt which failed completely and which shows total disrespect to the owners of the property,” the court said.