Published on 23 May 2022

FIRST SECTION

Application no. 37474/21 Myriam CHEMEL and Victoria TABONE against Malta lodged on 21 July 2021 communicated on 3 May 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the expropriation of the applicant’s property in 1978. The compensation offered by the State in 2007 was challenged by the applicants and finally determined by the Land Arbitration Board (LAB) in 2016 at 2,579,000 euros (EUR) with interest as of 1978. However, due to a disagreement on the amount of interest payable the deed was not concluded. Thus, the applicants instituted constitutional redress proceeding, complaining that they still had not been compensated for the taking and raising various arguments in relation to the interest due and the applicable laws. By a judgment of 1 July 2020, the first court found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and Article 6 solely because the applicants had not yet been compensated for the taking of their land. It awarded EUR 20,000 in compensation and ordered that the deed be signed by the end of the month. The applicants appealed. Pending the appeal proceedings the deed was signed and the applicants received i) EUR 2,579,000 in compensation for the value of the property; ii) EUR 1,839,00 in interest from 1978-2007; iii) EUR 807,158 in interest from the date of the LAB judgment (2016) until the deed in 2020, at 8 % (on the difference between the sum awarded by the LAB and the sum offered in 2007). This without prejudice to their right to seek further interest, and to their ongoing constitutional proceedings whereby they were challenging the interest due. On 27 January 2021 the Constitutional Court confirmed the first-instance judgment considering that the compensation for the taking had been adequate and that should the applicants wish to claim further interest they should raise their claims before the courts of civil jurisdiction. The applicants lodged their complaints with the Court considering that they should not be required to undertake further proceedings to receive the full compensation they were due, more than forty-two years after the taking.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the applicants suffer a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and Article 6 of the Convention?

2. In particular, more than forty years later, have the applicants obtained adequate compensation for the expropriation of their property in 1978 bearing in mind that i) they have not received any interest for the period 2007-2016 and ii) the interest from 2016-2020 was calculated only on the difference between the sum awarded by the LAB and the sum offered in 2007?