The owner of a primary property in Valletta’s commercial hub, put to limited use by the lessors enjoying its possession since 1964, was awarded €560,000 in damages for being denied full enjoyment of his property.
This was the umpteenth judgment by a local court declaring that the current laws, allowing landlords “limited enjoyment” of their property, effectively breached their fundamental rights in terms of Article 37 of the Constitution and Article 1 Protocol 1 of the European Convention.
The massive building, consisting of separate units with entrances on Merchants Street and St Paul’s Street, comprising basement and airspace, measuring 631 square metres at each storey, had been leased to the Caruana family back in 1964.
A chatty coat of arms? According to the French, it is. Known as arms parlant or ‘canting’ arms, these shorthand emblems of identification play a visual pun on the family surname. It is up to the observer to fill in the blanks.
Bees carved into a limestone coat of arms, atop a façade in Għarb, reveal the occupant’s family name to be Apap − ape is Italian for a bee.
The coat of arms of Lieutenant Colonel Count Charles A. Gauci, the new chief herald
Naturally, an olive tree features prominently in the coat of arms for the Testaferrata Olivier family and a pear tree for the de Piro coat of arms.