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MINISTERS’ DEPUTIES |
Decisions |
CM/Del/Dec(2024)1514/H46-24 |
5 December 2024 |
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1514th meeting, 3-5 December 2024 (DH)
H46-24 Apap Bologna group (Application No. 46931/12), Ghigo group (Application Supervision of the execution of the European Court’s judgments
Reference documents |
Decisions
The Deputies
1. recalled that these cases concern mainly violations of the applicants’ right to the peaceful enjoyment of property due to the operation of rent control legislation related to requisitioned properties and imposition or indefinite extension of private leases; excessive length of proceedings, and lack of effective remedies;
As regards individual measures
2. noted that the just satisfaction has been paid and the applicants have reached new rent agreements or regained possession of their properties in the cases of Zammit, Cachia and Others, Galea and Borg, Micallef and Others and Martinelli and Others; decided to close the examination of the five repetitive cases as no further individual measures are necessary, and adopted Final Resolution CM/ResDH(2024)335;
3. noted that the progress with the individual measures in the remaining cases is closely linked to the successful implementation of the general measures; reiterated, therefore, the invitation to the authorities to continue to submit up-to-date and detailed information on the applicants’ situation, including on envisaged transitional individual measures until the general measures would be fully implemented;
As regards general measures
4. noted that the extent and the complexity of the problems revealed by the European Court’s judgments in these cases have been significantly reduced since the new legislative framework was put into place in 2021; invited the Maltese authorities to submit more detailed information on the implementation of this new legislative framework in practice, notably as regards:
· further examples of decisions on rent increases, showing how the revised rents corelate to the market rents, and that the revised rents may be awarded retroactively where procedures for finding a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 predate the procedures for revising the rent;
· information on how the thresholds of the means test performed on the tenants ensure that only meritorious tenants continue to be eligible for social accommodation, and whether they are revisable, as well as statistical data on the number of evictions ordered following the legislative amendments of 2021, including as concerns requisitioned properties, and on the length of time between the decision to evict and the actual release of the property;
· more recent examples of decisions of the Constitutional Court on the amounts of compensation for past violations of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1;
5. noted that the implementation of the new mechanism introduced in 2021 is alleviating some of the effects of the controlled rents on the owners by providing non-discriminatory enjoyment of their rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and thus the violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 was fully addressed by the Maltese authorities; decided to close the supervision of this issue;
6. noted that the issue related to the length of proceedings is being examined in the framework of the Galea and Pavia group of cases and decided, in the present groups of cases, to focus on examination of measures addressing violations of the applicants’ right to peaceful enjoyment of property and continue to supervise the issue of the length of proceedings in the Galea and Pavia group of cases;
7. in light of the progress of the general measures so far, decided to continue the examination of these cases under the standard procedure;
8. invited the Maltese authorities to submit updated information on the outstanding individual and general measures by 1 October 2025 at the latest.