The court has turned down a request to evict the General Workers Union from the Workers' Memorial Building, but decreed sub-leases to ARMS Limited - the billing company owned by Enemalta and the Water Services Corporation - and the restaurant Sciacca Grill, null, as they were in breach of the 1957 agreement.

The court case had been filed by former PN leader Simon Busuttil, after the Auditor General at the time had found that the union had breached a 1997 contract when it had subleased parts of the Workers Memorial Building to ARMS Ltd and Sciacca Grill because it did not have the required 51% shareholding in these entities. It had recommended that the government take legal action to rectify the situation.

Busuttil had then filed a case.

In a statement on Thursday, The General Workers' Union said that it "has successfully fended off an attempt by the Nationalist Party to evict Malta's largest trade union from its historic Valletta headquarters, developed over the last decades on a public land concession that was granted to it by the State in 1957."

It went on to say that Magistrate Mark Simiana decreed that while ARMS Limited - the billing company owned by Enemalta and the Water Services Corporation - and the restaurant Sciacca Grill could not continue their operations under a sub-let of the GWU's ground-floor shop-fronts, "the PN's pretensions for eviction fell squarely outside the law."

"The court stated that any requests invoking eviction were 'superfluous' given that this is a special and exceptional action that could not be contemplated under the action filed by the Nationalist Party," the GWU said.

GWU Secretary-General Joseph Bugeja expressed his satisfaction at the court verdict. "The effect of this court decision today is that the Workers' Memorial Building is here to stay, to be enjoyed by workers and their families and GWU members, allowing this trade union to continue working as a shield for workers' rights."