The Constitutional Court of Appeal has criticised a sentence handed down by the First Hall of the Civil Court in a case involving a ground rent dispute, saying that the remedy "devised" by the lower court was diametrically opposed to the law.
The case originally involved a dispute over ground rent between a man and a couple who had bought a house in Attard from him in 1980, which was subject to Lm35 annual ground rent.
However, the matter ended up before the Constitutional Court after the couple claimed that their fundamental human rights had been violated by unfair proceedings, in which a court had ruled that they should be evicted.
In 1994, the landlord had filed a case against the tenants on the basis that they had not paid their ground rent for years. In the same year he obtained a sentence in his favour, with the court ordering that they pay their dues and be evicted from the house.
However, the tenants claimed that they had not been notified of the proceedings and that the case had only come to the attention of one of them when the house owner filed a second case to have the first sentence executed. That was in October 2000.
The couple filed their own court case in June 2001 for a retrial, however, their request was thrown out of court on the basis that it was made over five years after the court delivered its original sentence.
The law, in fact, specifically time bars by five years requests for retrial.
The couple then filed a constitutional application in the First Hall of the Civil Court, which concluded that it would be opportune to allow the couple to have a retrial even though the five-year term had lapsed.
Both the couple and the original proprietor, however, appealed from this judgment to the Constitutional Court composed of Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Joseph D. Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph A. Filletti.
The court of appeal decided against the lower court. Besides leading to a multiplication of court cases and to more delays, the "remedy" devised by the lower court would also seriously interfere with the integrity of retrial proceedings, the court of appeal decreed.
The Constitutional Court noted that the sentence by the lower court was "diametrically opposed" to the articles of the law regulating retrial, precisely because a request for a retrial was inadmissible as over five years had passed since judgment.
The case has now been sent back to the First Hall of the Civil Court to decide afresh after examining whether the couple had been notified.
Lawyers Adrian Delia and Cherise Ellul acted for house owner Joseph Oliver Ruggier while lawyers Ian Refalo and Mark Refalo acted for Joseph and Carmen Ruggier, the tenants. Dr Victoria Buttigieg acted for the Attorney General.