Twenty former dockyard workers demanding compensation for asbestos-related illnesses yesterday rejected the Government’s plea that it had done everything possible to ensure their safety and argued that the masks they were given were flimsy and inadequate.
“The protective clothing was nothing more than a sham protective measure – the masks provided were not capable of protecting the men at all, particularly against asbestos,” they pleaded in submissions to the European Court of Human Rights.
Similarly, the ventilation in the work areas was “manifes-tly insufficient”.
Through their lawyer Juliette Galea, the men and the family of a worker who died from asbestosis argued that the Government, which owned Malta Shipyards from 1968 to 2003, had failed to fulfil its “positive obligations” to protect their lives against the cancer-causing fibre and tell them they were exposed to danger.
The safety equipment was so flimsy, often nothing more than disposable gear, that it led the workers “to seriously doubt the authorities’ good faith”.
The men resorted to the European court after three judges in the Maltese Constitutional Court upheld previous rulings that their request for damages should have been filed in a civil court, not a constitutional one.
The workers said they were “heavily exposed” during their years at Malta Shipyards and now suffered respiratory problems and areas of calcification on the lungs, known as plaques. One died from mesothelioma in 2009.
A mineral fibre used for insulation and as a fire retardant, especially in ships, asbestos is too small to be visible but can accumulate in the lungs if inhaled. Symptoms of mesothelioma, or asbestosis – irreversible lung scarring – do not show up until many years after exposure.
As part of the submissions, Dr Galea also sent to the ECHR a mask that had been handed out to the workers.
Dr Galea argued that her clients’ claim was “based on very specific responsibilities, which the State had taken on when it ratified the European Convention of Human Rights”.
Aside from the laws enacted in 2006, the Government admitted that no precautions were taken, information circulated or implementation enforced, and it did not prove it had a clear policy for asbestos removal.
The Government “actually refused to ratify” the Asbestos Convention 1986, Dr Galea pointed out, asking: “Does this fact not speak loudly about the lack of sensitivity to the grave dangers of asbestos?”
The Government could not justify the “tardy legislative” action taken in 2006 – especially since the hazardous effect of asbestos had been tackled in various publications between 1912 and 1997. These included medical journals such as The Lancet and The British Journal of Industrial Medicine, which were routinely available to medical students from the 1940s and not the 1970s, as the Government claimed, Dr Galea said.
“To this day, all this asbestos is still found in the Drydocks’ site in a disused tunnel, which has been walled.
“This means that, to this day, the Government has no effective removal and disposal policy.”