Man claims violation of right to fair hearing

A man yesterday filed a constitutional application claiming that his right to a fair hearing had been violated.

Raymond Caruana filed his application in the First Hall of the Civil Court against the Attorney General. He claimed that last September he had been found guilty by the Magistrates' Court on theft and falsification charges and was sentenced to two years imprisonment, suspended for four years, and fined Lm41,125.

Both Caruana and the Attorney General lodged appeals from this judgment.

Both appeals were appointed for hearing on November 13 but at Caruana's request were put off for December 16. On that day both cases were called at 9 a.m. but only the Attorney General was present and the Court of Criminal Appeal declared Caruana's appeal to be deserted. The court proceeded to uphold the Attorney General's appeal and ordered the confiscation of Caruana's car.

Following this Caruana filed a sworn statement in which he had asked the court to reappoint his appeal but the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed his request.

In yesterday's application Caruana submitted that the Court of Criminal Appeal could not hear only one of the appeals lodged as the outcome of one of the appeals would cancel the other.

Caruana submitted that the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal had violated his right to a fair hearing as he had not been given the opportunity to make verbal submissions on his appeal.

The First Hall of the Civil Court was requested to provide Caruana with a remedy.