After 38 years working at the dockyard, Louis Castagna knew he had a ticking time bomb in his chest, but his insides still turned to jelly when X-rays revealed carcinogenic fibres lodged in his lungs.

It was like I had a sleeping lion in my lungs. I know I inhaled a lot of asbestos and was predisposed to it, but it was still a shock," 62-year-old Mr Castagna told The Times.

He had spent all his life in shipyards, having been employed at 16 as an apprentice boiler maker in 1965 and working his way up to foreman until he took advantage of the government's early retirement scheme in 2003.

" Asbestos was used everywhere at that time. It was used as an insulation material for boilers, steam pipes and turbines in the ships that used to come in for repair," Mr Castagna explained.

Asbestos is a mineral fibre used in insulation and as a fire retardant, especially in ships. The fibres are too small to be visible but if inhaled can accumulate in the lungs and cause cancer.

Married and with two grown children, Mr Castagna received the bad news in the same year he resigned. He was diagnosed with pleural plaque and thickening, a condition where the asbestos fibres are calcified into smooth white areas of tissue on the lung's outer lining.

Mr Castagna said the workers were not given protection in the early years, but as time went by and awareness of the hazard increased, they were given masks.

But these were not enough. " Even when there was the fear, not enough was done. They even installed a fan to extract all the fibres, but it was futile. We were told to wet the asbestos, so that it wouldn't fly around, but this got stuck to our overalls and shoes, and we even went home with it," he said.

Mr Castagna is among a group of 20 men who lost court appeals this week after three judges sitting in the constitutional court upheld previous judgments which held that their request for damages should have been filed in a civil court and not a constitutional one. Among other things, the complainants failed to use all the legal remedies available to them.

The appeals court also turned down their request for moral damages which they made on the basis of a European Court of Human Rights ( ECHR) judgment.

In their appeal, the men had argued they were exposed to the carcinogenic fibre throughout their employment without being informed or protected, and the authorities' lack of action, which led to them becoming sick, breached their constitutional and European human rights.

Also, it was only through a constitutional case that they could prove that certain rights – including those listed in the European Convention – had been breached.

The European Grand Chamber of the ECHR ruled that the authorities had an " obligation" to take all protective measures if a person's life was in danger – including that of informing them.

But the government authorities argued the victims had also filed a request for compensation – without referring specifically to moral damages – and that responsibility had never been established.

Mr Castagna said he was " disappointed" at the way his legal battle had turned out. " I'm sorry it ended this way – that they didn't listen to us," he said.

However, they will not give up their fight as, led by their lawyer Juliette Galea, they will be taking their case before the ECHR in Strasbourg.

As years went by, he said, the shipyards had started sending their employees to be X-rayed on a regular basis, and in 2000 treated asbestos as a hazardous waste by hiring experts specialised in the fibre's removal to extract it from the ships.

The men opened civil lawsuits against the shipyards after they were diagnosed with various diseases related to asbestos inhalation.

" I know many men who died and others who became sick. We are not doing this out of revenge, but even though they knew about the hazard of asbestos, the ships still kept coming in," he said.

Because of his condition, he cannot be exposed to fumes, such as exhaust or cigarette smoke. " If I'm driving behind a bus, I have to pull over and let it pass, because I feel I am choking," he said.

In December, a civil appeals court had confirmed a decision to award € 103,000 to the family of Joseph Fenech, who died of lung cancer, because the dockyard had failed to provide the required safety measures against cancer-causing asbestos.