Comptroller of Customs fails to return goods after 19 years and four court judgements

The Comptroller of Customs has been ordered to pay €9,000 in damages after a court found that he had failed to return a car, a speedboat and a trailer seized almost twenty years ago.

Mr Justice Lino Farrugia Sacco delivered this judgment following an action for damages filed by Mark Micallef against the Comptroller. Mr Micallef told the court that in April 1993 the Customs Department had confiscated his Ford Transit van, his Rinker speedboat and a trailer on the basis that customs duty on these objects had not been paid.

Mr Micallef was charged before the courts with evading customs duty but was acquitted by the Magistrates Court in February 2000. Thejudgment was confirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeal two months later.

However, the Comptroller did not release Mr Micallef's possessions and  failed to do so even when ordered to do so by the First Hall of the Civil Court in 2003 following judicial action filed by Mr Micallef. On the contrary, the Comptroller had appealed to the Court of Appeal, but the appeal was deemed to have been abandoned in 2005.

In 2006 Mr Micallef filed another writ before the First Hall of the Civil Court asking for the Comptroller to be ordered to pay him damages as the van, the speedboat and the trailer had suffered substantial damages during the 19 years of seizure.

The Comptroller contested this action on the basis that he had acted in accordance with the law.

But Mr Justice Farrugia Sacco said that the Comptroller had continued to oppose Mr Micallef's request for restitution of his property even after four court judgments had been delivered in Mr Micallef's favour.

The Comptroller had appealed from the 2003 judgment of the First Hall of the Civil Court which had ordered the property to be released to Mr Micallef, but the appeal had then been abandoned . 

The van, the speedboat and the trailer had all suffered as a result of non-use and no maintenance over 19 years, the court said. However, Mr Micallef had not produced evidence to show the value of these items. Therefore the court said that it was empowered to establish a value itself and it ordered the Comptroller to pay Mr Micallef €9,000 in damages.