The Constitutional Court has thrown out a cleaning company’s bid to get the government to lift a ban against it over precarious employment, saying no justification was put forward for the issuing of an injunction.

Gafà Saveway was one of two cleaning companies barred from tendering for public contracts in June after a court in February had found it in breach of employment regulations.

The company’s three directors had been reprimanded by the court, which found them guilty of making some of their employees work longer hours than they were supposed to.

The Contracts Department had then issued a circular directing all department heads to ignore the two companies for any direct orders, quotations or public tenders.

Gafà Saveway applied to the Constitutional Court for an injunction against the blacklisting.

The company’s lawyer Edward Gatt argued that the decision was “legally obscene” as it was based on a court judgment that was “constitutionally incorrect”.

He said the court’s decision had been taken in the absence of any of the directors, who failed to appear in court, and instead of issuing an arrest warrant the magistrate found them guilty in absentia and reprimanded them.

Dr Gatt said the decision was being contested in the Constitutional Court because the basic element of a fair hearing was someone’s presence at any criminal proceedings against him.

However, Mr Justice Joseph Micallef yesterday threw out the company’s complaint, saying it had not satisfied the prerequisites at law to justify a warrant of prohibitory injunction.

An injunction was not the right tool to contest the Magistrates’ Court decision.

Mr Justice Micallef upheld the argument put forward by the Attorney General’s office that the Constitutional Court should not be used to appeal a judgment when the ordinary remedies, such as an appeal, had not been resorted to.