The State has been ordered to pay just over €200,000 in compensation to the owners of a building in Pieta which used to be a Labour Party club.

A Civil Court presided over by Judge Audrey Demicoli on Friday ruled that while the Labour Party had followed the law through the lease, the law governing lease itself – being that the rent started prior to 1995 – breached the rights of the landlords.

The building owners Tagliaferro & Sons filed a civil case against the State and the Labour Party because the rent being paid on the property was significantly lower than the property’s market value, and they were unable to terminate the lease due to laws governing pre-1995 leases.

The property was rented out to the Labour Party for use as a political club in April 1978 with a yearly rent of €186.35.  Because of laws governing rents signed prior to 1995, this figure remained largely unchanged.

A court-appointed architect in 2011 estimated the property’s rental value at over €8,000 per year, and the court said that it would fetch over €16,000 in annual rent in today’s market.

The court ruled that based on this, there was little doubt that the annual rent which was still in force had breached the landlords’ property rights.

The court said that the landlords were owed compensation for a 37-year period between 1987 and 2024, noting that in this period they had only received €6,794.06, but in actual fact should have received €261,621 instead, according to court experts.

Judge Demicoli deducted the rent already paid and a further 20% to account for a period during which the club may not have been rented and said that the landlords were owed €202,502.98, along with €3,000 in further damages.

The Judge said that the Labour Party as the tenants had acted within the parameters of the law and therefore could not be held liable for damages on the basis that it is the State’s responsibility to ensure that the law respects property rights, and nobody else’s.

It was the law itself that breached the landlords’ rights because it effectively locked them into a rental agreement that was well below market value, which is why responsibility was placed on the shoulders of the State.

The landlords were represented by lawyers Eve Borg Costanzi and Matthew Cutajar, lawyer Corinne Pace appeared for the State Advocate and lawyer Ryan Ellul appeared for the Labour Party.

‘The Maltese people continue to foot the bill for the Labour Party’s theft’ – PN

Reacting to the judgment, the PN said that the Maltese taxpayer will once again be paying for the Labour Party “abusively” using private property for its own needs.

This after a Constitutional Court last week found that a private property in Birzebbuga had been abusively taken from its owners and handed to the Labour Party – a judgment which will cost taxpayers €840,000 in compensation.

“This means that, in less than two weeks, the total amount Maltese taxpayers will have to pay for the Labour Party’s theft – as ordered by the courts – has now exceeded one million euro,” the PN said.

“In both cases – that of the Labour club in Tal-Pietà and the one in Birżebbuġa – the Labour Party illegally seized private property years ago and took it as its own. And now, after years of this theft, it is the State – meaning the Maltese people – who are being made to pay the damages,” the PN added.

It said that the Labour Party “should be ashamed of speaking about anyone else’s debt, when it has spent years robbing Maltese families of their rightful enjoyment of their own property.”

“The Labour Party conveniently reduces its own debt by stealing from people what is rightfully theirs. This is something the PN has never done and will never do,” the party said.

It said that the PL “has long lost any sense of morality and has become consumed by greed, grabbing whatever it can – even what does not belong to it.”

“Anyone who steals from Maltese citizens to line their own pockets is not fit to govern this country,” it said.