The European Court of Human Rights has declared as inadmissible a case filed by owners of land in Gozo against the government.

The land owners, Gozitan residents Michael Borg, Olympia Borg and Andrew Vella and Lorena Vella argued that land they owned had been expropriated for six years in 2008 to keep them from executing a judgement in their favour allowing them to build a boundary wall.

They argued that just before the wall was going to be built, their land was expropriated at a time when the Gozo Minister was acting Prime Minister.

The expropriation was revoked in August last year.

The government argued that the expropriation had been lawfully executed and intended to protect the site from irreparable damage which would have been caused by the building of the boundary wall. It had also been proportionate and the applicants had been offered adequate compensation.

The expropriation, the government argued, had been intended to settling the case before the Court.

In its judgement, the court noted that the applicants had reacquired ownership of their land and there was now nothing impeding the execution of the judgment in their favour.

Moreover, they had not explained what use, if any, this wall would have had, and that there was an objective purpose for it to be built.

It noted that the fact that the applicant’s land had been expropriated for a period of time did not appear to have had any particular consequences on the applicants.

Moreover, that land had now been returned to them, and the applicants had not shown that they had incurred any pecuniary losses in that respect.

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