Recent developments in residential leases, in connection to the violation of human rights and attempting to strike a fair balance between the lessor and lessee

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to delve into recent movements in the private residential lease sector. This will be done by analysing recent judgements related to the breach of human rights suffered by lessors due to pre-1995 special laws, to which they were never given a proper remedy and recent legislation which has been enacted in order to tackle the issue of attempting to strike a “fair” balance between the rights of both the lessor and the lessee. After many years of this tipping in the favour of one party and never finding an equilibrium. On May the 8th 2019, the Maltese courts were faced with what became a landmark judgement delivered by Mr. Lawrence Mintoff; “Anthony Debono v. L-Avukat General”. This case challenged the constitutionality of Maltese rent legislation and proved to be a milestone in relation to our rental laws. The court declared that “Chapter 69 of the Laws of Malta” and “Act X of 2009” which safeguard all those tenants in pre-June 1995 leases are in total violation of the “European Convention on Human Rights” and of the “Constitution of Malta”. This possibly brought about the change needed, since when looking at similar situations on a European level, Malta remains the only State along with Slovakia (Bittó vs Slovakia and Bukovčanová vs Slovakia) with numerous violations of landlords’ right to property. It is clear that the state “failed to legislate to safeguard the rights of owners” as the Constitutional Court declared. Therefore, throughout the second half of the dissertation, I will be examining whether or not today’s new piece of legislation “ACT No. XXVIII of 2019”, will succeed in attempting, or contribute towards, striking this long-sought for balance between the parties, or whether the disproportionality between one and another will resume after almost reaching a possible end.