A family was yesterday awarded €60,000 compensation for property requisitioned in 1958.

The property in Railway Avenue, Ħamrun, had been requisitioned by the Housing Authority and then transferred to the Postal Department to be used as a post office against a rent of €280 a year. The rent was increased in 1986 by court order to €387 and, in 1998, the property was wholly transferred to Maltapost and the family stopped receiving rent.

In a constitutional case they filed in 2009, Victor Gatt, Joseph Gatt, Agnes Gabriele, Evelyn Chetcuti, Gemma Vella and Louis Sant Angelo pointed out that the requisition was no longer valid for a public purpose because the postal service was being run by a private company and not by the government.

It further claimed it had been deprived of its property without proper compensation and that this was in violation of fundamental human rights.

Mr Justice Tonio Mallia disagreed that the property was no longer required for a public purpose. The fact that the postal service had been privatised did not remove the public interest that existed in the provision of post offices and services, he argued, adding that the concept of the public interest was linked to the final purpose for which the property was to be utilised. The use of the property as a post office by Maltapost was of benefit to the community as a whole and not purely in the private interest.

However, the court ruled that the family had suffered a disproportionate burden as a result of the requisition and the very low rent it received. It was therefore entitled to compensation.

Mr Justice Mallia said that, since the owners had launched procedures for redress over the low rent in 2009, the court was awarding compensation for loss of earnings for the past 10 years, calculated at €6,000 per year for a total of €60,000 to be shared equally between the government and Maltapost.

The Attorney General and Maltapost were each ordered to pay half of the sum to the family.