Constitutional Court turns down inmate’s claim for full pension

The Constitutional Court has rejected the request of a prison inmate and his wife who claimed their rights were violated when the Social Security Department halved the man's pension on the grounds that he was serving time in jail.

In August 2004, Paul Hili was convicted of the attempted murder of Victor Testa by hitting him repeatedly on the head with a wooden plan. Testa was in critical condition after suffering extensive head injuries. Hili was jailed for 15 years but a Court of Appeal reduced the sentence to 12 years at the Mount Carmel Forensic Unit.

Prior to his imprisonment Hili worked as a technician with Air Malta, but he turned 61 in 2011, while still serving time.

Subsequently the inmate applied for his retirement pension.

His application was accepted, however he was informed that as an inmate who had to support his wife he would receive only half his pension and would start receiving the full amount once he leaves prison.

After €9,257 were issued in pension payments in the name of Paul's wife Marianne, the Social Security Department realised that the prisoner's wife was herself receiving an invalidity pension, which made her ineligible for the 50% of her husband's pension.

An agreement was reached and the wife's pension was deducted by 5% in order for the department to be reimbursed the inmate's pension which Marianne had received.

The Hili couple filed a constitutional case claiming that Hili was being subjected to a double punishment since no court had ordered to have his pension is halved. Moreover, there was no hearing about this deduction, leaving him discriminated against on the basis that he is an inmate.

The applicants argued that the State was using its power to inflict further hardship on the families of inmates. Hili's wife was subjected to ill treatment and degradation when she was expected to live on half her husband's pension, when her husband had paid all his social contributions in full.

Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon rejected the request stating Hili's claim of being subjected to a double punishment has no legal basis. "With no stretch of the imagination can one conclude that the applicant is being subjected to two punishments. Fact is that Hili is an inmate and as such is only entitled to half his pension," the court ruled. Hili himself could have appealed the Social Security Department's decision to halve his pension, but he chose not to.

The court upheld the defendant's stand that neither Hili nor his wife were subjected to any ill or degrading treatment. "The convention specifies that ill treatment amounts to actual bodily harm or intense physical or mental suffering, while treatment is degrading if it arouses in the victim fear and inferiority capable of humiliating and debasing them, neither of which neither applies in the Hili couple's case," Judge McKeon said.