Robert Galea vs. Major John ‘Vanni’ Ganado
According to the judgement delivered by the Court of Appeal in the case Robert Galea vs. Major John ‘Vanni’ Ganado tenants can now make use of the Rent Regulation Board means test and have their rent re-evaluated.
According to this court decision landlords cannot proceed with an eviction of their tenants if the Rent Regulation Board has not means-tested the occupants.
The judgment in the case of Robert Galea against Major John ‘Vanni’ Ganado concerned an article in the 1979 Housing (Decontrol) Ordinance, which is the regulation that changed temporary emphyteutical leases into controlled rents. That law sought to transform hundreds of private individuals into social housing providers by asking them to keep renting out their tenements at a low rent, with no solution at law for proper indemnity. But according to the European Court of Justice this law breaches the right to property established both in the Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights.
Read more
In 2018 Malta sought to address the problem by providing a means test so that tenants would have the right to continue to make use of the property, for a rent not exceeding 2% of the market value of the property, which would be partially paid by the State. This law states that it was applicable to recent cases, including ones which had already been subject to a decision by the Constitutional Court.
In the case being appealed, Galea had a property which belonged to him under a protected lease. He tried to question the validity of the Housing (Decontrol) Ordinance in a civil court. At the time, the law regulating the means test for tenants had not been proposed. In its decision, the court reiterated its position namely that article 12 of the Housing (Decontrol) Ordinance was in breach of the right to property, and highlighted the fact that the tenants could not make use of this article to substantiate why they should continue residing in the property.
Galea proceeded to ask the Rent Regulation Board to evict the tenants. The Rent Regulation Board upheld the request, however the defendants appealed stating that whilst this was happening, the means-testing rules had been enacted, and consequently the Rent Regulation Board should have applied the law which was in force at the time.
In its decision on the case, the Court of Appeal presided by Mr. Justice Anthony Ellul, noted how the recently introduced mechanism stated that a landlord who had a favourable judgement by the court of constitutional jurisdiction, making his tenant’s eviction possible, could not continue to ask for the eviction of the tenant without first employing the procedure under the law in force with regards to means testing.
The Court of Appeal expressed its skepticism on this law, which it said added yet another layer of frustration for property owners, but noted that as a court of appeal in its ordinary jurisdiction, it could not order a constitutional reference on the matter of its own accord. The judge therefore varied the judgment of the Rent Regulation Board by removing the parts which ordered the eviction, but also decided to send back the acts of the case to the Rent Regulation Board to allow the plaintiff to decide on how he should proceed.
