Peanuts from Delimara to Qormi

Recently the Prime Minster called on the Leader of the Opposition to make a joint declaration with him that no future government would reintroduce requisition laws. The PM was being interviewed at the Granaries by Noel Grima, editor of the Malta Independent On Sunday.

Dr Lawrence Gonzi pegged his invitation on a belief that such a declaration would give a much-needed boost to the rental market. The peg was not so strong as to mask the implications loaded on it.

The PM was having a not-so-subtle go at past Labour administrations and, in the process, seeking to tar today's Labour with the same perceived brush. He was saying that requisitions that took place during Labour's terms of office were unjustified, unfair and probably worse.

Dr Gonzi was also suggesting that a future Labour government would go back to what he sees as its old tricks.

Above all, the Prime Minister was claiming that the Nationalist government is completely innocent of similar bad habits. What is truth? asked Pilate, as if he did not know, before washing his hands of the past, and keeping them away from the future as well.

A lot of requisition orders were issued during the Labour administrations of 1971-87. Far too many people assert that they suffered thereby for anyone to attempt to claim that everything was done in proper order.

Whatever was done in an unjust manner cannot be excused. One hopes that those who were badly affected were or will be given adequate remedy and, where due, adequate compensation.

I am not aware that there was any recourse to requisition orders during Labour's later and brief spell in office, during 1996-98. But if any injustice was committed during that 22-month span, it goes without saying that the victims should also be given proper remedy.

As it happens, the post-1998 Nationalist governments have established very visible benchmarks on their ability to cut through the legal maze that invariably sprouts up in deciding on compensation.

What has transpired so far regarding the demand by Mr Dom Mintoff and his family for compensation because of the deleterious effect on their country house and their enjoyment of it (from the siting of the new power station at Delimara across the road and downhill from their property) demonstrates a remarkable approach moulded by the administration.

The Mintoffs, as is their inalienable right, sought redress in the law courts. The Court found in their favour, and left it to another court to establish what compensation should be paid by the State - the Maltese people - for the action of a Nationalist government.

The short-lived Labour government of 1996-98 and the subsequent Nationalist governments established a precedent - or followed rare precedent, I am not certain which - and tried to negotiate an out-of-court settlement with Mr Mintoff.

It transpires from the government's appeal against the recent judgment by the First Hall of the Civil Court awarding the Mintoff family Lm360,000 in compensation, plus the right to retain their diminished but indubitably historic country house, that the government had already handed the Mintoffs over Lm200,000 during the strenuous efforts to settle out of court.

That part, surely, is a precedent. Before any court had deliberated what the compensation should be, the government had determined that it should be at least Lm200,000.

Whether or not that amount is adequate compensation for the infringement of the Mintoffs' human rights, and for their inconvenience, there could have been a fresh minor crisis in the making.

That would have arisen had the Court adjudged compensation lower than what the government, in sound reason and good heart, had already paid out, meaning that Mr Mintoff would have been required to refund the difference to the State. As it happened, no such conundrum arose.

The Court, after careful deliberation, though with scant technical supporting argument, decreed that the Mintoff family should get more, and also their house. The Mintoffs want more than the Lm360,000 awarded by the Court. They appealed, as is also their right. They want Lm500,000, and retention of the house.

The government too exercised its right to appeal. It wants ownership of the Delimara house to pass to the Sate, and monetary compensation to be capped at the amount which it already had paid out.

What is relevant to today's column is not the decency or indecency of the various proposals. It is the fact the government has proven to be quite malleable. Through the years and across different administrations, it has tried to negotiate an out-of-court settlement.

Through the years too, though I do not know whether the Labour government had paid out anything to Mr Mintoff between 1996 and its demise in 1998, the administration paid out Lm200,000, which Mr Mintoff took to be on account of considerably more than that.

Anyone with any sense of justice would agree that what is sauce for the goose, should also be sauce for the gander. Having established so clearly such a modus operandi the government should find no difficulty in dealing with claims for compensation in like fashion.

Or should it? That question has not been taken up by the Prime Minister or any government spokesperson. It might be that they feel they have to be prudent, because the Mintoff case, once it is under appeal, is sub judice.

That need not stifle or otherwise be a restraint on fair comment. It certainly should be no restraint at all on the freedom of the government to follow its own precedent - up to the now indelibly recorded benchmark of negotiating out-of-court settlements and paying along the way the odd X amount of liri on account, which in most cases would probably be peanuts in comparison to the Delimara deal.

Perhaps the government will be more forthcoming in due course, particularly if enough of those who claim to have suffered injustice also come forward, with well-marshalled and cogent arguments, and hold the government to its own account of itself.

Would a future Labour government resort to much requisitioning, as implicitly suggested by the Prime Minister? I cannot foretell the future, nor am I in a position to offer a reasonably well-informed guess.

Yet I'll stick my neck out and say, intuitively, that I should think not. I am unclear, though, what the Prime Minister was after when he effectively teased Labour to guarantee not to re-enact any requisition law. Governments, of whatever hue, may need to requisition land or buildings in some cases.

Were such a need to arise, they should do so fairly and evenly, keeping in mind the public interest, and also the guarantee enshrined in the Constitution against expropriation without compensation.

Teasing invitations aside, the PM's words had a further clear implication. This was that Nationalist governments are totally innocent of the sins inherent in requisitioning unfairly. That is not completely true...

...A gentleman from Qormi by the name of Paul Spiteri owned an apartment at number 89, Mdina Road, Qormi. It was leased out. When the lease expired, and the apartment was due to return to its owner, the lessee asked for an amount of money from the owner, although he was not entitled to it.

Paul refused to meet the unjustified demand. The lessee promptly turned over the apartment to the Housing Department. That authority just as promptly requisitioned the property, on September 3, 1990, three years into the life of the first post-1987 Nationalist government, and allocated it, the protests of the Spiteri family notwithstanding.

In time, the apartment was vacated again. The Spiteri children, their parents long gone, tried to get the apartment back. To no avail. The vacant premises suffered great damage through the years. A fire has since turned into a husk.

The Spiteris, apart from not getting any income from their property, still do not have access to it. They do not know when they will get the apartment back. Much less do they know who will compensate them for the loss in its value, and of income.

Paul, now departed, was a distant cousin of mine, and a constituent who was always kind enough to give me first preference when I stood as a candidate. He was a shy and diffident person, who kept himself to himself, and never asked me for anything, not even my intervention as his MP for years.

His children take after him. It was only recently that one of them finally asked me, six years into my political retirement, whether I could try to help. He gave me the file number, 045575.

Though Lawrence Gonzi would not know about it, it shows that one should be a little bit more careful with the political implications that one puts about. Probably there were many such or worse abuses in the Labour years. That is of little help to Paul Spiteri's children.

Possibly, the best I could do to help them would be to guide them to a lawyer, who might agree that their human rights have been infringed, who might persuade a Court that was so, which Court might find for the Spiteris and decree that compensation was due to them, at which stage the government might indicate a willingness to open out-of-court discussions on a fair sum, paying out small amounts along the way and, should there no agreement result, that another Court might award the Spiteris reasonable compensation equivalent to their lost income, their cost of rebuilding the apartment plus, who knows, a little bit for the stress and aggravation they have suffered.

On the other hand, if I gave my distant cousins that sort of advice, they might think I was politely telling them to forget all about their property. They are not the type to battle it out in court, much less to enter into arm-wrestling negotiations.

Rather quaintly they continue to believe that the government will give them their due, because that would be only fair...