Court finds no evidence that 'illegal' road in Naxxar was commissioned by Government

A court has denied a request for compensation, made by a family who claimed its land had been taken over by the Naxxar local council and transformed into a road, after it held that it had not been proven that the Government had any hand in the matter.

Mr. Justice Anthony Ellul was told how plaintiffs Joseph and Theresa Anastasi had filed the case against the mayor and executive secretary of the Naxxar local council, and the Malta Transport Authority, claiming that the council and the authority had illegally occupied a portion of land, adjacent to their property, which they had  acquired in 1980. A public road,Triq J.H. Newman was constructed on the 95 square metre plot-according to the Anastasis at the behest of the council and the MTA.

Theresa Anastasi had told the court that the family owned the parcel of land, upon which their farmhouse stood. She said that at one side of the property an existing passage was widened to accommodate trucks required for a nearby construction. Over time, the passage was asphalted and transformed into a public road.

However this assertion was not borne out by the evidence, with the court noting that no request for the expropriation of the plot had been made to the Lands Department. The evidence led the court to conclude the road had formed without the input of the Director of Public Works, and that the works had been carried out under a, now obsolete, law which stipulated that private roads would become government property once they were asphalted.

Additionally, said the court, the fact that the family owned a garage opening onto the asphalted road indicated that the Anastasis had benefited from the development.