Court orders €225,000 compensation for Freeport landowners
Matthew Vella
The Constitutional Court has awarded a group of families who owned the land at Benghajsa where the Malta Freeport now stands, the sum of €225,000 as compensation.
The case, initiated back in 2002, contested the government’s decision to rent the land previously occupied by the freeport, to CMA-CGM, which took over the freeport’s management.
The families claimed that government could not expropriate their land for commercial purposes. They said the 31-tumoli land government had expropriated from them back in 1969 was not being used for a public purpose, since the land had been passed on for CMA-CGA’s commercial interests.
They protested that the land, which they considered their own, had been put at the disposal of CMA-CGM.
In 2000, a court ordered the Commissioner of Lands to start proceedings against the Lands Arbitration Board to stipulate a just compensation for the family.
But the decree was ignored and the families instituted Constitutional court proceedings.
The Court ordered both the Commissioner for Lands, and the Attorney General to pay the families €225,000 as a remedy for their violation of their rights over the lack of access to a competent judicial authority.
The Court said the Commissioner of Lands had, “illegally and irregularly”, neglected to see that the families are paid their compensation, despite being ordered by the Court to do so.
In previous comments to MaltaToday, Dr Rene Frendo Randon had said: “Had fair compensation been offered by the arbitration board at the time, we could have purchased other properties at 1969 prices. Moreover, the property was not expropriated for a social purpose as laid down by the Land Acquisition Ordinance, but for a commercial undertaking where certain companies and business people are making fortunes at our expense.”
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