Published on 25 October 2021

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 38660/20 Joseph GRIMA and Others against Malta lodged on 31 August 2020 communicated on 8 October 2021

STATEMENT OF FACTS

A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

The case concerns an imposed lease as a result of the application of Chapter 69 of the Laws of Malta whereby the applicants who co-own the property at different shares are receiving EUR 212 per annum (based on the 1914 market value), increased every three years according to the index of inflation as of 2009. The lease may be renewed indefinitely and inherited, in fact in 2014 the original tenants passed away and their son inherited the tenancy. According to the court-appointed expert the rental potential between 2015 and 2019 was EUR 50,750, while that actually received was EUR 1,027.

The applicants instituted constitutional redress proceedings complaining of a breach of their property rights and noting that their claim only concerned the period following the death of the original tenants in 2014.

By a judgment of 10 October 2019, the Civil Court (First Hall) in its constitutional competence found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and awarded the applicants EUR 35,000 in compensation. It declared that the tenant ought to be ordered (sic.) not to rely on the impugned law to maintain title to the property.

On appeal by a judgment of 27 March 2020, the Constitutional Court reformed the first-instance judgment by reducing the compensation to EUR 15,000 (together with 5 % interest as of the date of its judgment) to cover the period between 2015 and 2019, that is only from when the tenant had inherited the property by application of Chapter 69 of the Laws of Malta, as that had been precisely the applicants’ complaint as set out in their application to the court. In this connection it noted, inter alia , that the tenant was a pensioner without children thus the tenancy was unlikely to be inherited further. It was decided that 1/4 of the costs of the proceedings at both instances were to be borne by the applicants.

In 2020 the applicants instituted proceedings before the Rent Regulation Board under Article 16A of Chapter 69 to evict the tenant. By a judgment of 2 December 2020 the Rent Regulation Board held that the tenant may no longer rely on the impugned law to maintain title to the property, the lease was thus being terminated by this judgment. It therefore ordered his eviction within thirty days. It refused however to take cognizance of the applicants’ claim for damage since the Constitutional Court’s judgment to the date of the eviction, without prejudice to any further remedies which could be undertaken by the applicants.

The relevant domestic law is set out in Zammit and Attard Cassar v. Malta (no. 1046/12, §§ 26-27, 30 July 2015).

COMPLAINTS

The applicants complain under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention alone and in conjunction with Article 13 that they remained a victim of the upheld violation due to the low amount of compensation awarded.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Have the applicants suffered a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention from 2015 onwards?

2. Did the applicants have at their disposal an effective domestic remedy for their complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, as required by Article 13 of the Convention? In particular, having regard to the amount of compensation awarded by the Constitutional Court for the period following 2015, can those proceedings be considered effective (see, for example, Portanier v. Malta , no. 55747/16, § 55-56, 27 August 2019)?

APPENDIX

No.

Applicant’s Name

Year of birth

Nationality

Place of residence

Joseph GRIMA

1962Maltese

Pembroke

Doreen GRIMA

1965Maltese

Marsascala

Georgina GRIMA

1938Maltese

Valletta