The Court of Appeal brought a decades-long legal saga to a close by upholding an eviction order against the Labour Party regarding its Santa Venera Club. 

Presided over by Judge Lawrence Mintoff, the court affirmed a previous 2025 decision by the Rent Regulation Board, which had concluded that the party's continued occupation of the property constituted a perpetuation of a human rights violation.

Before delivering the judgment, Judge Mintoff addressed the legal representatives for both parties asking whether there were any grounds for him to abstain or recuse himself from the case. 

In response, both legal representatives confirmed that they have full faith in the independence of the judge and the court presiding over this particular case.

A fifty nine-year-long dispute

The legal history of the dispute dates back to 18 April, 1967, when the Housing Secretary issued Requisition Order R023691. The order was initially intended to facilitate the opening of a road or bypass connecting Ħamrun to Marsa, but the project never materialised. 

Following more than a year of the property remaining vacant, it was allocated by the Director of Social Housing to the Malta Labour Party in September 1973 to be used as a political club.

The owners of the property, Vanessa Rapa Grech and eleven other members of the Grech family, were forced into a landlord-tenant relationship where they received an annual compensation of just €382 (Lm164). 

The owners contended that this allocation was an abuse of power, as it did not serve a genuine public interest but rather the interests of a political party.

A history of constitutional violations

Before seeking eviction, the owners successfully challenged the requisition in the constitutional courts. On December 7, 2010, the Constitutional Court declared the original requisition order null and void and awarded the owners €60,000 in compensation.

Twelve years later, on November 30, 2022, the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction found that the continued occupation and the "paltry and merely nominal" compensation were "detrimental to their fundamental rights as protected by Article 1 of the First Protocol of the Convention". 

The court awarded a further €161,240 in pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages.

Despite these judgements, the Labour Party did not vacate the premises, arguing that the constitutional courts had only awarded damages and had not explicitly terminated the lease.

The 2025 Rent Regulation Board decision

On April 30, 2025, the Rent Regulation Board ruled in favour of the owners' request for eviction. The Board rejected the Labour Party's defence that the club served a social or democratic purpose, labeling such testimony as "irrelevant" to the legal question of whether a lease found to be unconstitutional could remain in force.

The board argued that its duty was to halt the ongoing violation of the owners' property rights. "If it did so, the board would not only be going against what Article 6 of the Constitution of Malta... says and wants, but would itself be perpetuating the violation already found," the court had said.

The board concluded that the Labour Party could no longer rely on ordinary rent laws to defend its title, as the lease had effectively been by operation of law through the constitutional judgments. 

The PL was ordered to vacate within 40 days.

The appeal

The Labour Party appealed this decision, arguing that the board's interpretation of the lease's validity was "incoherent" and that eviction was an "extreme remedy". 

The party maintained that because the owners had continued to accept rent, a valid title remained. In the Wednesday judgment, Judge Lawrence Mintoff dismissed these arguments. 

He noted that the owners' recognition of the party as a tenant was "forced" and was the "direct result of the Requisition Order imposed on the owners". Therefore, such recognition had no legal effect once the requisition was declared null.

The Court of Appeal emphasised the supremacy of human rights over ordinary legislation.

The court further observed that while residential tenants are often protected by recent legislative amendments, the legislator has not provided a similar mechanism for political clubs to adjust rents to market levels. 

Consequently, the owners were left with no alternative; "the appellees [owners] had no other remedy by which they could stop the said breach, except by requesting the appellant to vacate the premises".

The final judgement

The court ruled that financial compensation alone does not satisfy the legal requirement for complete restoration or "just satisfaction" as required by the European Court of Human Rights.

Ten of the owners' requests against the Housing Authority were dismissed, as it was proven the Authority was no longer in possession of the property.

Concluding the case, the Court of Appeal dismissed the Labour Party's appeal and confirmed the eviction order in its entirety. 

The Labour Party was ordered to pay all legal costs for both instances of the case and must vacate the Santa Venera property within the original 40-day timeframe.