The owners of a Santa Venera property, requisitioned and allocated to the Labour Party some 50 years ago, were awarded €161,240 in compensation by a court which, however, turned down their claims that such state of affairs breached their rights to freedom of expression and association.

This was the outcome of a judgment delivered in proceedings filed by the landlords of the premises at 362, St Joseph High Road which were targeted by a requisition order in 1967 and subsequently handed to the Labour Party in 1973. 

This was the second breach of rights action instituted by the owners.

In 2009, they were awarded €75,000 by way of compensation after the First Hall, Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction concluded that the authorities’ action and the sum granted to the dispossessed owners constituted a breach of their right to peaceful enjoyment of their property. 

The Labour Party originally paid the owners Lm45 annually, but that amount was increased to Lm164 (equivalent to €382) after it was revised by the Rent Regulation Board in 1987.

The 2009 judgment annulled the requisition order which had not been issued in terms of law, while observing that meanwhile the owners had entered into a lease agreement with the tenant. 

That judgment was appealed and the amount of compensation was reduced to €60,000. 

However, since that 2010 appeal judgment, nothing much changed for the owners who continued to receive a nominal amount by way of rent. 

Although the law was changed to address such discrimination and injustice, these amendments did not apply to them as owners of property used as a political party club, the applicants argued. 

Faced with such state of affairs, the landlords once again took their grievances to court, claiming that not only were their fundamental property rights being breached, but also their rights to freedom of expression and association. 

They were effectively being forced to give financial support to a political party against their own personal choice, when they could use the premises for their own private purposes or else grant it to some other organisation.

This was an “ongoing injustice,” argued the applicants. 

The large property on a main road was being used for a commercial purpose. 

One of the owners testified that they were refusing to accept the annual rent of €694.79 and the money was being deposited in court. 

During the proceedings, the heirs of the property’s original owners fondly recalled childhood memories of days spent in that house and family occasions celebrated there. 

One of them explained how his grandad had spent a year or so away from the house after his wife passed away, moving in temporarily with a relative in Sliema during that period of bereavement. 

When he returned to Santa Venera, he discovered that the locks to his home had been altered and all his furniture and other movables transferred to a warehouse at Belt is-Sebħ.

The witness’s grandfather thus ended up homeless. 

When delivering judgment, Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff observed that although there was now a lease agreement on the property, the owners had no choice but to accept the Labour Party as their tenant.

However, the applicants were not requesting eviction, the court noted further.

The requisition order had already been annulled by the previous judgment which had also found that the applicants’ property rights were breached.

This court, therefore, would not enter into the merits on that issue again, but declared that the action by the Housing Authority and the State Advocate, as respondents in the case, “was and still is” in breach of that right as safeguarded under article 1 Protocol 1 of the European Convention. 

As for their claims that the state of affairs breached their rights to freedom of expression and association, the court held that the applicants had failed to prove how they were being molested in those rights. 

There was nothing stopping them from expressing their opinion and associating themselves freely.

The fact that they and their predecessor in title “were forced to acknowledge the Labour Party as the tenant [did not] interfere with the exercise of those rights,” the court said. 

When meting out compensation, the court pointed out that the amount depended on the particular facts of each case. 

In this case, the court upheld the owners’ claims with respect to their fundamental property rights, awarding them €155,240 in pecuniary damages and €6,000 in non-pecuniary damages, payable jointly by the Director of Social Accomodation and the State Advocate. 

A copy of the final judgment was to be forwarded to the Speaker in Parliament. 

Lawyer Claire Bonello assisted the applicants.