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Breach of human rights in 1992 requisition, court orders €50,000 compensation
Court rules Housing Authority breached human rights through requisition order on family home, and orders €50,000 compensation to be paid to heirs.
26 March 2013, 12:00am
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
1 min read
A court has ruled that a decision by the Housing Authority to issue a requisition order on a home in Qormi in 1992, breached the fundamental human rights of Edward and Cynthia Zammit Maempel, and ordered that they be paid €50,000 in compensation.
The First Hall of the Civil Court (Constitutional Seat) handed the judgement after hearing submissions filed by the Zammit Maempels against the Housing Authority and Jesmond and Carmen Abela.
In their claim, the Zammit Maempel's explained that they had inherited the house in Qormi from their late father. It was requisitioned in 1992 and allocated to Jesmond and Carmen Abela by title of temporary emphyteusis.
However, when the lease expired the Abela's still occupied the house and offered the owners an annual rent of just under €280. The rent was not accepted by the Zammit Maempels.
The Zammit Maempels said they received no compensation from any authority following since the requisition and that the house was now empty and abandoned, and urgently needed repairs.
They stressed that their fundamental human rights to enjoyment of their property had been violated.
In his judgment, Mr. Justice Meli said the Housing Authority's claims that it acted in the public interest, and requisitioned property only for the purposes of allocating it as a dwelling. was definitely not the case here.
The court said that the evidence proved that while the house was unoccupied, the requisition order remained in force, making it unjustifiable.
Mr. Justice Meli, ordered the annulment of the requisition order, and ordered that both the Housing Authority and the Abelas to immediately return the property to its rightful owners.
It also ordered that the Zammit Maempels be awarded €50,000 in compensation for their ordeal.
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PN political history is full of lies. According to PN only labour requisitioned property.
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Requisitioned in 1992? There goes another myth that houses were only requisitioned under Labour. One of many myths which ignores the fact that requisitions were government policy since the 1940s and continued until the late 1990s. Perhaps we now stop hearing the usual nonsense.
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And this happened under Eddie Fenech Adami, l-istilla, the Prim Minister who was found guilty of breaching human rights against Camilleri, and the Prime Minister against whom over 600 people were found to have suffered political discrimination under the Tribunal for Injustices. Imagine if this happened under Mintoff!
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So finally the courts are able to see the injustice the Government and the Housing Authority committed against property owners. In 1974 the Government requisitioned my father's empty property at 60 Triq In-Naxxar, B'kara so one of their constituents can occupy that property and they assigned the sum of 19 Maltese Liri a year rent. Yes I did say a year. Of course my father pleaded with the government, then Minister Lorry Sant, to get the property back since we had enough family members that wanted to occupy that house. Naturally my father's pleas fell on deaf ears and to this day that same squatter lives in that same property and the rent is now one hundred and eighty five(185)euros a year set by the previous government. This is of course highway robbery encouraged and enforced by our government and our courts. Our archaic law states that we must wait for this tenant to die or go away and then we have to let her daughter or son continue to occupy the property until they also die or go away. Again my email address is [email protected] .
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1992 and we were made to believe that these things happened only under a labour government.
