The organisers of the Naxxar international trade fair are determined not to give up their battle to hold the fair in July and are exploring all possible legal avenues to get the permit which was turned down on Friday.
Although the Commerce Division did not give any reasons for the refusal to grant the permit in its press statement issued on Friday, it put forward three points in a letter to the Trade Fairs Exhibitors Association Ltd, which applied for the permit.
The division said that the holding of the trade fair at the Naxxar fair grounds would have negative repercussions on residents living in the area.
It also stated that holding a trade fair ran contrary to the Central Malta Local Plan issued by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority and that since the trading licence had been terminated, a fresh one had to be issued and therefore required a fresh Mepa permit.
When contacted, TFEA Ltd chairman Paul Abela said these issues were all mentioned and discussed in court during the case instituted by his company against the Commerce Division in order to be granted permission to hold the Malta International Trade Fair.
"Are they above the courts?" he said, when contacted following a meeting with the company's lawyers.
The annual fair, which opened last week, had moved to Ta' Qali in 2007 after being held at the Naxxar fair grounds for 50 years. It is now being organised by a rival business group, but TFEA Ltd has been trying to organise a second major fair at Naxxar.
However, in January it was denied a trading licence when the department insisted it required a planning permit. The company contested this decision in court.
On Wednesday, the court ruled that the company did not require a planning permit and that the original licence it held to organise a fair at Naxxar had to be reactivated after being "irregularly terminated".
The following day, TFEA Ltd announced that, on the strength of the court's decision, it had set the ball rolling to hold the Malta International Trade Fair between July 16 and 25. The Trade Department appealed against the court's decision and the licence application has been turned down "without prejudice to its appeals", it said.
Mr Abela explained that to terminate the trading licence with which the trade fair was organised for the past 50 years, the division required permission from the landlord, Scicluna Estates, who had not been approached.
He said that instead, the division got the go-ahead from the heirs of Gerald Claude Gatt who, in 1975, held the post of general manager of the Malta Trade Fairs Corporation.
"They (the Commerce Division) are being imprecise even on their own law. The issue is not going to stop here. We are exploring all possible legal avenues to win our right to organise the fair at Naxxar for which we have a trading licence," he said.