Mr Justice Joseph R. Micallef, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court, yesterday delivered a preliminary judgment in the case filed by the Campaign for National Independence against Public Broadcasting Services Ltd and against the Broadcasting Authority. The case was also filed against the Attorney General.

CNI had requested the court to order that it be given the same facilities to air its views as those awarded to the Malta-EU Information Centre (MIC). The court was also asked to declare that the refusal by the Authority and PBS to air CNI's spots was in violation of its rights in terms of the Constitution and the Broadcasting Act.

CNI also demanded compensation.

Defendants had pleaded that CNI had no juridical interest in the suit and that the proceedings were null and void as they ought to have been filed using the procedure of application rather than writ of summons. They also pleaded that the writ of summons was contradictory.

In its preliminary judgment, the court found that CNI's action had been properly instituted. There was no need for the proceedings to have been filed by way of application and defendants had not been prejudiced because CNI had opted to use the procedure of writ of summons rather than application.

The court also ruled that CNI had a legal interest in filing its litigation against defendants. In this case, CNI's judicial interest lay in its claim that the defendants were refusing to recognise its rights. There was therefore a valid judicial interest in this case.

The court then proceeded to examine the plea raised by the Attorney General, namely that CNI's action contained a request for different remedies. CNI was requesting an ordinary remedy in terms of a particular law and an extraordinary remedy in terms of a constitutional action. These, the Attorney General submitted, were alternative remedies and not cumulative remedies for an extraordinary remedy could only be requested and obtained when no ordinary remedy was available.

The court agreed with CNI's submission that the plea did not bring about the nullity of the action it had filed but declared that the substantive merits of the plea were to be examined and decided upon by the court that would hear the merits of the case.