The Court ordered the State to pay a further €254,000 - this time to compensate for the fact that the Labour Party seized private property in Strada Rjali, Valletta, and occupied it for a full 70 years, the Nationalist Party said in a statement.

"While the Constitutional Court found Labour guilty of breaching the fundamental rights of the building's owners in Republic Street, Labour has not been evicted from the premises and will continue to enjoy its use. Over the past few months, Labour has accumulated €1,600,000 in penalties for abuses of private property, which now have to be paid out of Maltese taxpayers' money."

"In addition to the grave injustices committed by Labour against the owners of these properties for decades, the Labour Party is now inflicting further injustices on Maltese and Gozitan workers who, instead of seeing their taxes invested in services, are being forced to pay for Labour's abuses. Labour grabs, and the people pay," the PN said.

In response, the PL said that it respects the Court's decisions, "as it always does, including in the case concerning the Labour Party Club in Valletta."

"The Constitutional Court recognised that, as co-owner, the Valletta PL Local Committee will not be evicted from the premises where the PL Club is located. The Nationalist Party was quick to sound the trumpets about this case, but it forgot that it was a Labour Government that ensured justice was served and that a balance was struck between the rights of owners and the interests of tenants when it carried out the reform of the pre-1995 rent laws."

"The Nationalist Party would do better to examine how it concealed its debt in a cosmetic exercise in an attempt to divert attention from the serious financial problems it faces internally. Before pointing fingers at others, the Nationalist Party should conduct a thorough examination of conscience, as it lacks credibility not only in managing its own party's finances, but even more so those of the country," the PL said.