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On May 8, the judgment Anthony Debono et vs The Attorney General, in which a tenant was divested of the protection afforded to him by the law and inexorably condemned to eviction, has perhaps been unduly acclaimed as a “landmark judgment”. Besides the fThe point about old rentals - Kurt Xerri
On May 8, the judgment Anthony Debono et vs The Attorney General, in which a tenant was divested of the protection afforded to him by the law and inexorably condemned to eviction, has perhaps been unduly acclaimed as a “landmark judgment”. Besides the fact that it is a First Hall decision potentially subject to appeal, the incompatibility of pre-1995 leases with the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) has been clear for, at least, the last 13 years. The history of rent control in Malta is an extremely complex one and it is a mirror reflection of the main historical vicissitudes of the island, particularly the immediate post-World War II periods and the economic rebuilding of the Maltese sovereign State in the 1970s. Controls were invariably introduced to respond to shortages of housing and to limit market abuse, in a context where the proportion of tenants in Malta exceeded that of homeowners. It was only in 1985 that the recorded number of owner-occupied dwellings was found to be higher than that of rented units. Albeit accompanied by controversy, the validity of these rent control instruments was unquestioned both by the local as well as the European Court of Human... Read more