Court redress over requisitioned property in Malta ‘effective in theory, not in practice’
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Although constitutional redress proceedings were an effective remedy in theory, they were not so in practice, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in two cases involving requisitioned properties in Paola and Qormi. In the circumstances, it noted, such proCourt redress over requisitioned property in Malta ‘effective in theory, not in practice’
Although constitutional redress proceedings were an effective remedy in theory, they were not so in practice, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in two cases involving requisitioned properties in Paola and Qormi. In the circumstances, it noted, such proceedings could not be considered as an effective remedy for the purposes of the European Human Rights Convention with regard to arguable complaints on requisition orders which, though lawful and seeking legitimate objectives, imposed an excessive individual burden on the owners. The relevant provision of the convention says: “Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.” The cases were about a 20th-century corner townhouse in Nazzarenu Street, Paola, and a property situated in an alley in St Francis Square, Qormi. The first had been requisitioned in April 1986 and the other in December 1992. The four owners of the Paola house – Mary Grech, Christopher Mintoff, Stephanie Mintoff and Lilian Wismayer –instituted constitutional redress... Read more