The Constitutional Court yesterday confirmed a judgment of the First Hall of the Civil Court (in its constitutional jurisdiction) which had found provisions of the Housing Decontrol Ordinance governing the conversion of temporary emphyteutical grants to perpetual grants to be null and void.
The ruling followed the Constitutional Court's declaration that an appeal over the case filed by the government had been abandoned, as not all the parties to the litigation had been served with the appeal within the legal time limit of one year.
The first court had found that the amendments forming Article 12 (4) and (5) of the Ordinance were in violation of the Constitution as they deprived owners of their property without adequate compensation.
The Article entitled the holders of property by title of temporary emphyteusis to convert their title to one of perpetual emphyteusis if certain criteria established by this law were satisfied.
The Constitutional Court was presided over by Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Joseph D Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph A Filletti.
The court was hearing the appeal lodged by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Justice in the case filed against them by Mario Galea Testaferrata, Nicholas Jensen, Helen Miles, Agnes Gera De Petri, Irene Bach, Anna Marie Spiteri Debono and Karen Preziosi.
The applicants had also filed their case in the First Hall of the Civil Court against George and Maria Theuma and Ganni and Lelina Grech.
In yesterday's judgment the Constitutional Court pointed out that Mario Galea Testaferrata had also filed an incidental appeal in this case.
It resulted that the government's appeal had never been served upon the heirs of George Theuma, who had died before the first court delivered its judgment in October, 2000. Neither had Mr Galea Testaferrata's incidental appeal been served on any of the other parties to the suit.
There was no doubt that the Theumas and the Grechs were parties to the suit, for the applicants had filed their constitutional application before the first court because these parties had requested the Gozo court to declare that they were entitled to convert a temporary emphyteusis into a perpetual emphyteusis.
The Constitutional Court ruled that the law expressly provided that all parties to an appeal had to be served with the appeal and the notice of the appointment of the case for hearing within one year from the appeal being filed.
If such service was not carried out then the appeal was deemed to have been abandoned.
The Constitutional Court therefore declared that the appeal had been abandoned and added that the judgment of the First Hall of the Civil Court of October 3, 2000 was now a final judgment. A copy of yesterday's judgment together with the first court's judgment was to be sent to the House of Representatives.