Judges order removal of defamatory appeal application

The Court of Appeal yesterday found that an appeal from a decision of the First Hall of the Civil Court was offensive and defamatory.

The court ordered that the application be removed from the proceedings as though it had never been filed.

The decision was delivered in the course of appeal proceedings filed by a man against his estranged wife.

The man, assisted by his lawyer Emy Bezzina, submitted an application of appeal from a judgment of the first court to the Court of Appeal composed of Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano, Mr Justice Albert J. Magri and Mr Justice Tonio Mallia.

In the course of yesterday's sitting, the appellate court drew the attention of the man and his lawyer to the fact that the application of appeal contained paragraphs and words that were objectionable and offensive and which were unnecessary for the purposes of the appeal.

Both the man and his lawyer asked the court to authorise them to withdraw the paragraphs complained of. But the Court of Appeal declared that no criticism could be allowed to degenerate into gratuitous insults and personal attacks on a judge. The application of appeal, the court ruled, contained constant references to alleged prejudice by the judge who had decided the couples' case in first instance. But it also contained accusations that the judge had abdicated his duties, that he was an amateur and that he had abused of his authority.

Such allegations, the Court of Appeal said, were defamatory and offensive. It therefore ordered that the application of appeal be removed from the records of the proceedings and that it was to be deemed as though it had never been filed.