Every political administration in the past four decades has taken legal measures to protect groups of people in Maltese society who at some time were perceived to be vulnerable. The rent law of 1979 gave almost absolute protection to tenants of rented property but deprived landlords of their automatic right of repossession or raising rents as long as tenants paid their often meagre dues.

This law, which many, even at the time, considered as inequitable, practically killed the rental market for residential property for more than a decade.

Attempts were made in 1995 and in 2005 to liberalise the property market and encourage owners to rent their properties with the right to repossess them when a lease expires. However, tenants who had entered into lease agreements before 1995 continued to enjoy the same rights granted to them by the 1979 rent laws.

A recent European Court of Human Rights ruling could cause a major earthquake in this stagnant legal quagmire that various political administrations have allowed to persist despite the occasional public outcry on the unfairness of the provisions of the archaic rent laws.

A recent list of obsolete laws that the government intends to eliminate from the country’s statute books did not mention the provisions of the 1979 rent law.

So, if it were not for the decision of the ECHR, landlords could continue to be treated unjustly as few politicians seem to have the political will to abrogate laws that are perceived to protect vulnerable people.

A liberalised property market has more advantages than disadvantages if the rights of both tenants and landlords are entrenched in updated rent legislation. The glut of empty property that already exists in the local market could be used more productively if free market forces are allowed to function without excessive administrative interference.

Rent agreements entered into pre-1995 should no longer be exempt from current rental laws as “prohibiting landlords from refusing to renew existing leases or raising rents when the tenant was a Maltese citizen breached property rights in terms of the European Convention”.

Now that there is an ECHR decision on this issue, the government should present the necessary legal provisions to ensure that our rent laws are in line with the European Convention.

Quite apart from the modest pecuniary damages awarded by the ECHR, the main consequence for the government will be the management of individual cases where the elimination of the 1979 rent laws provisions might cause hardship to some tenants.

It is likely that there will be very few such cases.

An equitable solution can be found to alleviate the hardship of vulnerable tenants who may either have their lease terminated or are asked to pay current market rates for the ­property they have occupied for several years.

While free markets do not always work as well as they should in a small economy, the property market in Malta is very competitive and well developed.

This should ensure that anyone who wants to rent a property can have a good choice that matches his/her financial means. The notion that most people have a right to social housing at the taxpayers’ expense is untenable in today’s circumstances.

There will, of course, always be vulnerable members of our society who will need State assistance to have a roof over their head. These social obligations have to be catered for separately and not through archaic rent law provisions.