Malta [Case 1 : sex work contracts]

Abstract

Miss Butterfly most likely will not be awarded the €10,000 she is claiming from Mr Bighead. The Maltese Civil Code speaks of lawful causa, understood as its lawful reason, as one of the essential conditions for the validity both of a contract as a whole and of a single contractual obligation. Judgments normally focus on proving that the causa of a contractual obligation is unlawful, as this would usually be understood to mean not only that the particular obligation would have no effect, but also that the contract as a whole would be null. The impact of the unlawful causa on the recoverability of what has been given or paid by one party to a bilateral contract depends on whether the causa is unlawful in regard to one or both of the contracting parties. This is decided according to the principles of nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem allegans (no one shall be heard who invokes his own guilt) and in pari causa turpitudinis cessat repetitio (where both parties are guilty, no one may recover), which are both codified in the Maltese Civil Code.[Excerpt]