The European Court of Human Rights today awarded Peter Azzopardi €445,000, plus any tax that may be chargeable, in compensation for land expropriated in 1974.

Mr Azzopardi was also awarded €6,000, plus any tax that may be chargeable, for costs and expenses.

The monies are to be paid within three months.

The court heard that the land had been taken for the construction of a reservoir.

In 1992, the owners were offered €18,050 for the acquisition. While some of the parties accepted the sum offered, others, including the applicant, objected to the amount by means of a judicial letter.

The applicant made a counter-claim for €559,050.

But the law at the time did not provide for any procedure allowing the applicant to initiate proceedings for compensation.

In the 1990s it was confirmed, through case law, that if a request was made by anyone in a position similar to the applicant’s, the courts could set a time limit within which the authorities were obliged to initiate such proceedings.

The applicant claimed he repeatedly solicited the authorities to process his case, but to no avail.

In 2004, the public authorities instituted proceedings before the Land Adjudication Board to determine the compensation due. Those proceedings are still pending.

The applicant claimed before Constitutional jurisdictions he had been deprived of the property without compensation and that such compensation had not been determined within a reasonable time. The Commissioner of Land and the applicant appealed.

In November 2011, the Constitutional Court confirmed the first-instance judgment which rejected the government’s objection as to non-exhaustion of ordinary remedies. It noted that the dispute between the parties started in 1974 and 37 years later, the applicant was still awaiting compensation for the taking of the land.

Compensation to the tune of €25,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage was paid in 2012.

However, after 38 years, the Constitutional Court – having established that there had been a violation of the applicant’s rights following decades of inaction – failed to determine the amount of pecuniary compensation due. The proceedings were still pending 40 years after the taking and 10 years after the compensation proceedings started.

The ECHR said the proceedings concerned the valuation of a plot of land, and even though that process might have been rendered more intricate by the number of parties involved, that alone could not justify a 10-year delay.

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