Three doctors have filed a judicial protect against the Public Service Commission, the Minister of Health and the Director-General of the Law courts calling for the selection process for a designate consultant surgeon to be annulled and relaunched.

Drs Predrag Andrejevic, Josephine Psaila and Angela Sultana said that in July 2010 the commission published a call for the appointment of a designate consultant surgeon with an interest in hepato-pancreato biliary surgery.

On January 20, 2011 they were informed that Dr Robert Cuschieri had placed first in the election process. The three doctors said they had protested, saying he was not eligible to apply for the call.

On November the commission informed them that it had decided to cancel the selection process and to relaunch it. It also ordered the new selection board to ignore the results of the first call.

On December 15 Dr Cuschieri applied for and was granted a temporary warrant of prohibitory injunction to stop the cancellation of the selection process.

A judge then started to hear the case in January. The case continued in February and was then put off for May.

The three doctors in their protest said that according to the law, a court has to decide on a request for warrant of prohibitory injunction within a month of an application being filed, but the court as ignoring this. This, therefore annulled the temporary warrant that had been issued.

They therefore insisted that the first selection process should be declared null.

Dr Paul Lia was counsel for the three doctors