Norman Lowell protested outside the law courts today that the Constitutional Court had, for the fourth time, failed to hand down its decision in a case he had instituted after the Appeals Court threw out his appeal from a conviction of inciting racial hatred.

"Having a sentence put off four times is unheard of," Mr Lowell told a press conference outside the law courts.

"The way I am being treated shows that Malta is a third world country, this is a bankrupt island which lacks a spine," Mr Lowell said, adding that the only hope for the country was for people with moral fibre, like himself, to go to Brussels to help change the course of Europe and of Malta.

"From a sacred island, Malta has become a banana republic," he added.

His legal counsel, Emmy Bezzina, said justice had to be seen to be done for the courts to enjoy the people's respect.

He recalled that the case went back to May 2006 when Mr Lowell was arrested and subsequently arraigned with urgency on a Saturday afternoon. He was convicted two years later and handed a suspended jail term.

An appeal was filed, but the criminal appeals court threw it out in a seven-page decision based on technicalities.

A case was instituted before the constitutional court, which however declared that it could not serve as an appeals court over the appeals court. That decision was appealed from. Judgement had been pending for over a year but had been put off four times, without reason being given.

Dr Bezzina said the decision would also have to be put off again when the case comes up on October 29 because Mr Lowell would ask the new Chief Justice, Silvio Camilleri, not to take cognisance since, as Attorney General, he was a party in the case.

The implication of these postponements, he said, was that Mr Lowell could not yet take his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, because he has first to exhaust all local legal avenues.

The fact that the Constitutional Court was failing to hand down its decision meant that Mr Lowell was being denied his rights, he said.

Mr Lowell and Dr Bezzina regretted the fact that Dr Camilleri, as Attorney General, had failed to investigate their claims about exaggerated and illegal spending during the electoral campaign by some of the candidates for the election of members of the European Parliament, and said they would file a new request when the new Attorney General takes over.

Dr Bezzina noted that candidates in local council elections had been arraigned for failing to submit their spending declaration, when nothing was done about the case of the MEPs, even by the police commissioner. This, they said, constituted two weights and two measures.