Court rejects claim for rehearing because of bomb hoax

A court today threw out a man's request for his case to be reheard after finding that it was not true that a bomb scare at the courts on January 30 had led to the case being cancelled from the list of case to be heard on that day.

Charles Farrugia had lodged a court case against Mariella Azzopardi last year. He told the court last January 30 he arrived at the Law Courts building at 9am only to be told that there was a bomb scare and that the building had to be evacuated.

According to Mr Farrugia, his case had been called to be heard but, as neither he nor his lawyer were present, the case was cancelled and struck off the list of cases to be heard.

He requested the First Hall of the Civil Court to revoke the decision whereby his case had been cancelled on the basis that there had been a valid reason for his not having been present

Mr Justice Mark Checuti said that the court had cancelled Mr Farrugia's case on the basis of section 199(3) of the Code of Civil Procedure. This stipulated that the court could order the cancellation of a case if the parties to the suit or their lawyers failed to appear after being summoned three times.

The party whose case was cancelled was entitled, on a one time only basis, to request that the case again be put on the court list to be heard and decided.

However, the court observed that Mr Farrugia's case had already been cancelled once before when he had failed to appear before the court to present his evidence on December 5. On that occasion, Mr Farrugia had requested the re-appointment of his case and this was granted.

When referring to Mr Farrugia's assertion that he had not been present as a result of the bomb scare, Mr Justice Chetcuti said that it resulted from evidence  that the bomb threat was made at 9.10 am and not at 9am. Mr Farrugia's case had been called at 9am and was cancelled as neither he nor his lawyer were present. Mr Farrugia had also admitted that he had heard his case being called but had not entered the court room because his lawyer was not present.

Mr Farrugia's absence, said the court, was unjustified and the court therefore refused to revoke the previous ruling in terms of which the case had been cancelled.