Eviction lawsuits against tenants operating businesses within the footprint of St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta, are set to go ahead after the court turned down a request to 'stay' proceedings until the long-standing ownership issue was resolved. 

A stay of proceedings is a ruling by the court that halts further legal action.

This was the outcome of a decision taken by the Administrative Review Tribunal in eight separate cases filed by a group of jewellers running shops on the capital’s famed ‘gold street’ and other business operators in the vicinity who last year received eviction notices from the Lands Authority.

Those notices are being contested before the Tribunal where the applicants’ lawyers argued that it was only the owner who could proceed with eviction.

Since the ownership of the Co-Cathedral and its adjacent properties was a long-running issue dating back to the period of French occupation on the island, the Authority had no right to seek eviction and proceedings were to be 'stayed' until ownership of the Valletta properties was clear. 

Reference was made to an agreement entered into in 2001 between the Church and the State whereby the St John’s Co-Cathedral Foundation was set up to administer the Valletta property. 

That agreement declared that the ownership issue remained “unprejudiced” and hence unresolved, the applicants’ lawyers stressed. 

Yet last week Magistrate Charmaine Galea, chairing the Tribunal, turned down their request to stay proceedings declaring she had done so after reading that 2001 agreement “more than once and pondering at length about the spirit behind it.”

Indeed that agreement was signed without prejudice to the ownership issue and the rights enjoyed by both parties.

It also provided for rents to be collected by the foundation as a representative of the government. 

The spirit of that agreement was to ensure that one of the island’s most beautiful jewels would be administered in such a manner as to be enjoyed by the public in all its splendour.

Indeed, public access to the treasures within the Co-Cathedral has marked considerable improvement mostly thanks to work done by the foundation, observed the Magistrate. 

The properties had been leased by the government and rent was always collected by the entity tasked with administering the property.

That entity was currently the Lands Authority which, following the 2001 agreement, handed over the rent payments to the Foundation, which in turn utilised the monies in its projects. 

The tenants never had any problem with handing over the rent to the government nor with acknowledging the government as the owner of the premises from which they ran their businesses.

And when the authority asked them to remove air conditioning units from the premises, the tenants had complied, went on the Magistrate.

It was evident that the foundation looked upon the government as having the right to terminate the leases.

In fact, back in 2003, the foundation wrote to the then Commissioner of Lands requesting possession of one of the shops on Santa Lucija Street since it needed space for an electricity sub-station.

The following year, the foundation wrote to the Director-General Estate Management requesting the possibility of terminating the running leases.

In a follow-up letter to the foundation, it was pointed out that the transfer of the administration of the Valletta property in terms of the 2001 Church-State agreement, “cannot be interpreted to mean that the property is to be transferred to the foundation under some form of title to be directly administered by it".

It was further stated that “the government is to remain the owner and manage the property on behalf of the foundation".

Neither the foundation nor the Archbishop’s Curia had contested that statement which appeared to have been tacitly accepted, observed Magistrate Galea. 

Another request for termination of the leases was sent by the foundation in 2018 to then Parliamentary Secretary Chris Agius and the Chairman of the Board of Governors.

But most importantly, Monsignor Emanuel Agius, a member of the foundation’s council, declared that eviction proceedings were to be handled by the authority.

He further stated that there were currently no pending lawsuits linked to the ownership issue nor any plans for such proceedings between the State and the Church in the future.

The Malta Archdiocese’s Administrative Secretary, Michael Pace Ross, also told the tribunal that the Archdiocese was backing the foundation’s decision to seek termination of the existing leases. 

The tribunal also cited a scholarly article by Professor Mario Buhagiar about the historical background of the “unsettled” ownership issue.

As the church adopted a less “militant” and more of a “pastoral” stance, even in the wake of Vatican Council II, it “is no longer interested in property rights. What it wants and insists on is the continued use of the co-cathedral for liturgical purposes,” read that article. 

When all was considered, the tribunal concluded that even if ownership was still contested, the government could nonetheless take action with regard to property that it possessed and administered. 

The government had acted as such when granting the leases and neither the Curia nor the tenants themselves had ever contested that.

In light of such facts and since stay of proceedings was an exceptional measure left to the discretion of the court, the tribunal deemed that there was no reason to grant such a measure so that the Church or government might institute proceedings to resolve the ownership issue as suggested by the applicants. 

Lawyers Edward Debono, Antoine Cremona and Chiara Frendo are assisting the tenants. Lawyer Ramona Attard is counsel to the Lands Authority. 

Correction April 4, 2022: A previous version included a photo displaying the wrong side of Triq Santa Lucija.