The Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed an appeal filed by the captain of a vessel and its owners from a judgment of the First Hall of the Civil Court which had ordered them to pay the Malta Maritime Authority over Lm12,000.
The court heard that in 2002 the MMA had filed a writ against Captain Khaled Mohammed Elsayed Elbellasy on behalf of the vessel Marwa M and on behalf of the vessel's owners.
In January 2003, lawyer Tonio Azzopardi and solicitor Victor Bugeja were appointed as curators on behalf of the ship's captain.
In its judgment, the First Hall of the Civil Court noted that the MMA was claiming Lm12,594.42 from the captain and the ship owners by way of port dues and other claims, and this after the vessel entered Malta in November 2001 in violation of the port regulations and the law governing the MMA.
The court upheld the MMA's claim and ordered the captain and the owners to pay Lm12,594.42.
The curators appealed from this decision to the Court of Appeal composed of Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Joseph D. Camilleri and Mr Justice Joseph A. Filletti.
They argued that the court ought not to have delivered judgment when it did as on that day new evidence had been produced and, once they had not been present, they could not carry out a cross-examination nor could they produce other evidence by way of rebuttal.
This plea, the Court of Appeal noted, was totally unfounded, for in terms of law, the solicitor had been obliged to attend the hearing of the case, but had not done so from the moment he had been appointed curator.
The Court of Appeal added that Dr Azzopardi had been aware that the case had been put off for continuation and for possible judgment for July 22, 2003 (the date on which judgment was actually delivered). It resulted that the scope of this deferral had already been made known to Dr Azzopardi when the case was put off to July 9, 2003 for this purpose.
Dr Azzopardi had asked the court to put the case off as he was going to be overseas on that date and the case was in fact put off to July 22.
The first court, the Court of Appeal said, had been perfectly entitled to deliver judgment on that date and had also been substantially correct in its judgment.
In conclusion, the Court of Appeal confirmed the judgment appealed from and dismissed the curators' appeal.
The court added that the appeal had been frivolous and vexatious, but felt it could not apply the penalties contemplated at law as the curators had been appointed from official lists.
The court therefore ordered that a copy of the judgment be sent to the parliamentary secretary responsible for justice so that he could see what steps ought to be taken to penalise such types of appeal filed by curators.