A judge yesterday lambasted two restaurant owners for “abusing the correct administration of justice” after they filed four warrants of injunction to stop the removal of an illegal timber canopy outside their property.

Mr Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon noted how the men had filed three requests in court to stop the removal of the canopy but all were turned down and only six days after the last refusal, a fourth attempt was made.

The requests were all made against the Land Department and revolved around a timber canopy built outside the Neptune’s Bar and Restaurant in Marsalforn, Gozo, which Francis and George Schembri claimed was their property.

They argued that they had operated their business using the land for 50 years and in fact had been granted permission by the planning authority to erect a timber canopy for chairs and table to be placed outside.

The men claimed that the government had declared it was not the owner of the land and when they asked for assurance of this, they received an eviction order.

The request is a desperate exercise in forum shopping

On the other hand, the Land Department said the fact that the planning authority had issued a permit for building the canopy did not mean that it gave a title to the men.

Furthermore, they had no contract to show that they were the rightful owners of the land in question, the department argued.

Mr Justice Zammit McKeon said that the three requests to stop the removal of the canopy happened in the past year with the last being made just six days before the fourth was filed.

He said: “The court without the slightest hesitation and with the utmost responsibility that this fourth request is an abuse of the correct administration of the justice because nothing new was brought to the court’s attention.”

“The request is a desperate exercise in forum shopping” after they were faced with unequivocal refusals from three courts, the judge said.

The men did not prove that they are the valid title holders for the land while the government was in possession of valid and uncontested titles for the area in question, the judge said.

He threw out their request to stop the department from removing the canopy.