Case papers misplaced twice

A company has filed a judicial protest claiming that it was "absolutely unacceptable" that the documents of a court case had been misplaced twice at the law courts.

Combinati Transport Services Ltd argued that this was a very serious shortcoming on the part of the law courts' administration as it affected the trust towards the administration of justice in general.

The company filed the protest, in the First Hall of the Civil Court, against the director general of the law courts and the civil courts' registrar.

Combinati explained that it had initiated a civil case against Superfruits Ltd that was still pending before Mr Justice Carmelo Farrugia Sacco. The case documents had been misplaced at an early stage of the proceedings and the parties were notified about this on April 18 and May 30.

When the documents were not found, the case was reconstructed.

When the company produced all its evidence, the case was put off for judgment to Tuesday.

But during that sitting, the company was informed that the judgment had not been handed down as the court documents had been misplaced once again.

The company argued that this was unacceptable and was of serious prejudice to its case.

The company now had to reconstruct the case for a second time and this when some unique documents had been lost.

Lawyer Philip Galea Farrugia signed the protest.