Malta breached the right to life and the right to respect for private and family life when it failed to take measures to ensure the safety of 21 shipyard workers who were exposed to asbestos for a number of years, the European Court of Human Rights said today.

In its judgment on five applications filed by 21 former shipyard employees who were exposed to asbestos from 1968 to 2003, the Court ordered the government to pay a total of €226,000 in compensation.

The applicants suffered conditions and one passed away from a malignant cancer linked to exposure to asbestos.

They alleged that they were constantly and intensively exposed to asbestos particles during their employment.

In May 2009 all the applicants brought constitutional redress proceedings alleging that the State had failed to protect them from unnecessary risks to their health and sought compensation.

Their applications were ultimately dismissed in April 2011 for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.

In the European Court, the applicants alleged that despite the fact that the authorities had to have been aware of the risks linked to asbestos exposure as early as 1938, when the link between asbestos exposure and respiratory disease was first documented, they had neither been informed nor protected from the dangers of asbestos in any way.

Moreover, they said the government had failed to properly legislate or take practical measures concerning the removal of asbestos.

In its judgment, the Court found that the Maltese government knew or ought to have known of the dangers arising from exposure to asbestos at least as from the early 1970s, given the domestic context as well as scientific and medical opinion accessible to the government at the time.

Legislation passed in 1987 did not adequately regulate asbestos-related activity, nor did it provide any practical measures to protect employees whose lives may have been endangered.

The Court concluded that, in view of the seriousness of the threat posed by asbestos, and despite the room for manoeuvre left to States to decide how to manage such risks, the Maltese government had failed to satisfy their positive obligations, to legislate or take other practical measures.

The Court found that, while the conditions the applicants had had to live with in recent years had undoubtedly caused some – and in one case severe – difficulties and discomfort, they could not be considered to amount to degrading treatment.

In respect of the applicants whose relative had died, the Court held that, even considering that his suffering had met the threshold for a violation to be found, the complaint at issue could not be transferable. Accordingly, they could not be considered to have victim status.

The court said that an adequate remedies existed for pecuniary and moral damages.

The applicants opted for the latter but the Constitutional Court, on the wrong assumption that a non-pecuniary remedy was not mandatory, refused to take cognisance of their case and sent them applicants back to the ordinary courts to institute first an action in tort.

The ECHR concluded that it was satisfied that the national judicial authorities were provided with the opportunity to remedy the alleged violations of the Convention but failed to do so.

Consequently, the applicants’ institution of constitutional proceedings sufficed in the present case for the purpose of exhaustion of domestic remedies in respect of the substantive complaints.

Lawyer Juliette Galea represented the applicants.