Landowners win compensation claim over road expropriation

A successful challenge in Malta’s highest court by landowners compensated for just 132 square metres of nearly 2000 sqm expropriated from them for road construction, on the grounds that it was their responsibility to build roads, is expected to force a hefty payout by the government.

In December 2000, Salvu Schembri received a notice from the Lands Department informing him that a 1,954sqm parcel of land in Hamrun belonging to his road construction company Schembri Barbros Ltd was to be expropriated with an offer of a paltry €9,888 (Lm4,245) as compensation.

Schembri refused after an independent valuation he commissioned arrived at the rather different figure of €2,932,500.

Transport Malta had oddly insisted that only 132sqm of Schembri’s land were being expropriated, as the rest of the area consisted of residential roads and therefore no expropriation was needed “as it was the responsibility of the residents to pave the area.”

Understandably, this did not go down well with the landowner.

“They are interpreting law in a manner which puts the obligation of compensation on the owners of the housed facing the road,” Schembri Barbros Ltd’s lawyer John L. Gauci said.

Eventually a smaller part of the area was expropriated, but the owners received nothing in compensation from the Lands Department (today the Lands Authority) and so the lawsuit was filed against the Commissioner for Lands, Transport Malta and the Attorney General.

The Constitutional Court ruled that it was the right of the plaintiff, as legitimate landowner to be compensated for being deprived of the peaceful possession of his land. 

The Court turned down Transport Malta’s argument that it should not be held responsible for the expropriation of land to be used for residential roads.

“The fact that the roads on the lands had already been made by third parties took nothing away from the rights of the applicants to be compensated in terms of the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights.”. 

The judges disagreed with the decision of the first Hall of the Civil Court, which had only awarded Schembri €5,000 in moral damages, on the grounds that the expropriated area was “quite small.”

“This part of the decision is factually unsustainable taking into account the fact that the proven area is of 1439.79 square metres and therefore certainly this tract of land cannot be taken to be ‘quite small.’”

“Once it has been proved that the applicants are the owners of the lands in question, they must be compensated for their being taken from them,” said the court.

The decision to uphold the appeal does not completely resolve the issue, however, and still leaves the landowners having to file separate proceedings for compensation.