The Nationalist Party is insisting the Labour Party return its 28 clubhouses in various localities to their rightful owners.
In the latest bout of an ongoing saga, the PN yesterday said any law regulating political party financing was not fair unless Labour relinquished the properties it “stole” in the past.
The PN wants compensation from the State to redress what it believes is an imbalance unless the PL cedes the properties in question.
The controversy took a legal twist last week when the heirs of a family that owns a large property in Qormi, where the PL club is housed, filed a judicial protest asking the party to vacate the premises.
The party has been using the house as a club for 60 years and pays a pittance in rent, but this conforms to the law.
On Sunday, Dr Muscat said the party would allow the courts to decide on the matter. But the PN yesterday hit out at the Prime Minister’s reaction.
“[Joseph] Muscat is with his back to the wall defending the theft of more than 28 properties from the State and families.
“Instead of doing the honourable thing and returning what is not his, Muscat is perpetuating another lie,” the PN said.
It insisted Dr Muscat could not be believed when he said the PL would leave the matter to the courts.
The party noted that the government dropped a court case against the PL last year aimed at reclaiming the historic Australia Hall in Pembroke.
Political parties and other social organisations, such as band clubs were exempted from the 2009 rent reform. This addressed the previous injustice allowing tenants to retain possession of rented property while paying rents set decades before.
The reform set a minimum ceiling for rent payable to landlords that would increase by the cost-of-living-adjustment for properties leased before 1995 and ensured that leases would expire once the tenants who were registered as living in the property died.
However, the law that was unanimously approved in Parliament exempted social organisations from these provisions.
In 2009, a landlord was awarded compensation by the European Court of Human Rights after it found his rights were breached by laws preventing him from ending long-standing rent agreements. The case had dragged on for nine years.
The 2009 rent law allows the issue of a legal notice that would liberalise rents on properties housing political and social clubs but this faculty was never used.