State ordered to pay €180,000 to owners of Tarxien property over fundamental rights breach

State ordered to pay nearly €180,000 in compensation to the owners of a €1.2 million Tarxien property that had been leased for a pittance since 1954

File photo
File photo

The State has been ordered to pay nearly €180,000 in compensation to the owners of a €1.2 million Tarxien property that had been leased for a pittance since 1954.

The First Hall of the Civil Court, in its Constitutional jurisdiction, presided by Mr. Justice Spiteri Bailey, handed down judgement in a case that had been filed in 2020 by Emanuel Ciantar and Consolata Brincat, as owners of a Tarxien property leased to third parties. The plaintiffs claimed to have suffered a breach of their fundamental rights as a result of their tenant’s right to renew the lease indefinitely.

According to the evidence presented in court, the property in question originally belonged to Carlo Ciantar, Emanuel’s grandfather. When Carlo Ciantar died, his wife Bennarda Ciantar had inherited the property, which was subsequently bequeathed to Gaetano Ciantar, Emanuel Ciantar’s father, after Bennarda’s death. Upon Gaetano Ciantar's demise, Emanuel Ciantar and his siblings were nominated as his universal heirs in equal shares and were part owners of the house.

The property had been rented to the Richard family since 1954. The rent, which had been initially set at Lm18 per year, had gradually increased to €225.51 per year in 2009. The claimants did not have rent books to confirm the payments they had received over the years, but had estimated that they had received a total of €3,199.56 in rent between 1987 to 2018. They had stopped accepting rent after that, and had subsequently filed the court case in 2020.

A report prepared by an architect engaged by the Ciantar family had valued the property at €1,200,000. The court was informed that there were no pending planning applications on the property, and that the claimants did not intend to sell the property before it was vacant.

In his testimony, the current occupant Anthony Richard, said that the property had originally been leased to his wife’s parents for an annual rent of Lm20. She had lived there since 1954 and he had moved in with her in 1971.

The defendants had argued that Richard was in a legally ambiguous situation because he was also the owner of another property that was the subject of similar proceedings, and that if the court ordered his eviction from the Tarxien property, he would have nowhere to live.

In his decision, Mr. Justice Ian Spiteri Bailey said he agreed with the defendants, in that Article 37 of the Constitution, which enshrines the right to Protection from deprivation of property without compensation, did not apply to the case at hand.

However, the court also declared that the burden that the claimants had to bear as a result of the State’s interference through the introduction of protected leases, was “clearly disproportionate and excessive” and had led to an extensive breach of their right to the enjoyment of their property, for which they had not been given appropriate compensation.

The court declared that the Richard family could no longer claim to have a right of indefinite renewal of the lease to justify their continued occupation of the premises, but ruled that courts of constitutional jurisdiction were not the correct forum to decide on whether to terminate the lease or evict the tenants from the property.

The court determined the amount payable in pecuniary compensation to be €169,290 to which a further €10,000 representing non-pecuniary compensation was to be added. The court ordered the State Advocate to pay the claimant a total of €179,290 in pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages, in addition to bearing the costs of the case.

Lawyers Jason Azzopardi, Kris Busietta and Julian Farrugia assisted the Ciantar family.