The Constitutional Court has awarded additional compensation to a married couple after confirming a lower court decision that its right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time was violated when a civil court case took 33 years to be decided.

The Constitutional application was filed by Francis and Enoe Said against the Attorney General.

The case went back to 1973 when Mr Said engaged a certain Joseph Gatt to carry out repair works to an antique gold chain. The parties had disagreed between themselves and in 1973 Mr Said had commenced an action for damages before the Commercial Court. The case was decided by the First Hall of the Civil Court (which had in assumed the duties of the Commercial Court) in October 2003.

Mr Said had appealed from this judgement and the Court of Appeal delivered its judgement in December 2006.

The Saids then filed a constitutional application in the First Hall of the Civil Court in which they requested a declaration that their fundamental human right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time had been violated. They also requested the Court to order the Attorney General to pay them compensation. The court last June found that the delay in this case had been exaggerated even though difficulties had arisen in the appointment of technical and legal experts.

The court had also found that the Saids had contributed to the delay as they had not attended all the court sittings and they had changed their lawyer. But since the State was substantially to blame for the exaggerated delay, Mr and Mrs Said were awarded compensation of €2,000.

Mr and Mrs Said appealed to the Constitutional Court, insisting that they had not contributed to the delays and requesting additional compensation. The Constitutional Court ruled that there had definitely been unjustified delays and it disagreed with the findings of the First Hall of the Civil Court that the Saids had contributed to the delays. It resulted that Mr and Mrs Said had failed to attend eight sittings over the course of 30 years, which, the court said, was an insignificant circumstance.

The court therefore raised the compensation payable to Mr and Mrs Said to €6,000.