Court rejects compensation claim over decades-long spoliation case delay

A court has ruled that Chequers’ Inn Operators Limited is not entitled to compensation over delays in a spoliation case that stretched across seventeen years, holding that the bulk of the postponements were attributable to the company itself.

The judgement, delivered on Friday, also saw the court abstain from taking cognisance of claims filed by co-applicant Anthony Mario Vella for lack of legal standing.

The constitutional case concerned allegations that the excessive duration of civil proceedings, initiated in 1994 and concluded in 2012,  breached the applicants’ right to a hearing within a reasonable time under Article 39 of the Constitution and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The applicants argued that the protracted timeline deprived them of effective relief, particularly after the Qawra hotel at the centre of the dispute was sold, demolished, and replaced with apartments.

In its analysis, the court rejected the state advocate’s plea of res judicata but nonetheless upheld the objection that Vella lacked a personal legal interest. The judge noted that Vella had already pursued a separate constitutional claim concerning the same delay, which had been dismissed by the constitutional court on the basis that a shareholder cannot complain of breaches suffered by the company.

Turning to the company’s claim, the court examined the chronology of the original spoliation suit, filed in January 1994 against Tarcisio Galea Construction Limited. Although spoliation actions are intended to be determined swiftly, the court found that Chequers’ Inn Operators Limited repeatedly requested adjournments; eight years’ worth to present its evidence and a further two-and-a-half years to file submissions.

In one instance, the company’s own lawyer sought a postponement to confirm whether the client still wished to pursue the case.

The judge observed that, by the time the case was awaiting judgment, the hotel had already been demolished, meaning that the final period of judicial inactivity could not have caused the loss of the property or rendered reintegration impossible. While acknowledging that a seventeen-year duration was not ideal, the court said the company could not shift responsibility for its lawyers’ conduct onto the State.

The court dismissed arguments that the applicants’ failure to resort to procedural remedies, including a request to reassign the case under Article 195(5)(b) of the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure, should relieve the State of responsibility altogether. However, it held that the decisive factor remained the applicants’ own role in prolonging the proceedings.

On this basis, the court rejected the company’s request for a declaration of a breach of fundamental rights and for compensation. It ordered that the costs of the case be borne by the applicants.

State advocate lawyers were Rachael Aquilina and Cristina Sutton.