The Constitutional Court yesterday confirmed a judgment ordering the government to pay more than €700,000 compensation to four stevedores whose human rights were breached.
The issue revolved around a law that forced them to retire at the age of 61.
The court, however, reduced moral damages awarded to them from €6,000 to €2,000 each.
Armando Chircop, Anthony Spiteri and two men called Anthony Attard had filed a constitutional application in the First Hall of the Civil Court in 2007 against the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin, the Malta Maritime Authority, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Competitiveness and Competition and the Attorney General.
They claimed that a legal notice promulgated in 2007 laid down that, like other port workers, they would have to retire at 61.
In a preliminary judgment in November 2011, the court ruled the legal notice in violation of the men’s right to enjoyment of their property, arguing that they had been deprived of their licence to work as foremen in the port when they reached the set age.
The first court also ruled that the licence they had was their property and the failure by the authorities to renew such licences violated their property rights.
The UĦM and the MMA (now Transport Malta) were exonerated from liability.
In a second judgment last September, the court liquidated the damages on the basis of the men’s earnings before the age of 61 and projected the earnings until they were 71.
In the case of the first Anthony Attard, the court found that he had suffered loss of earnings to the tune of €218,500 while Armando Chircop had suffered losses of €264,913.
The other Anthony Attard was found to have suffered losses of €56,000 and Anthony Spiteri lost €190,000.
The first court also awarded each of the men €6,000 by way of moral damages for violation of their human rights.
The Prime Minister, the Minister for Competitiveness and Competition and the Attorney General appealed, deeming the damages to be excessive. The men themselves filed a partial appeal complaining that the moral damages were insufficient. The Constitutional Court, composed of Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri, Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo and Mr Justice Noel Cuschieri, dismissed the partial appeal and reduced the moral damages from €6,000 to €2,000 each.
The government’s appeal was also dismissed, save for that part of the appeal concerning the moral damages.
The Constitutional Court agreed with the first court’s damages award, noting that the remedy for a breach of human rights was for the aggrieved party to be put in the position it had been in before the violation occurred. This could not be done at this stage, so the only remedy was that of awarding financial damages.
The first court’s assessment of the damages suffered on the basis of loss of earnings was therefore correct, the three judges ruled.
The Constitutional Court said the four men were entitled to moral damages. However, the financial damages they had been awarded had compensated them for work that they had not performed. As a result, the moral damages awarded by the first court had been excessive.