A Gozitan shepherd has gone all the way to the Constitutional Court in a bid to save his sheep from being culled.

Ġanni Attard, a 55-year-old shepherd from San Lawrenz, had failed to comply with a legal requirement to register the sheep and an Appeals Court recently upheld a previous ruling delivered by a magistrate, paving the way for the 300 animals to be culled.

In his application, Mr Attard is claiming breach of human rights when he was arrested and detained for no reason at the Victoria police station until the veterinary authority moved into his farm to cull 216 of his sheep.

Moreover, he is also claiming breach of another human right, on the enjoyment of his property, when the authorities moved in without a necessary warrant and without informing him killed half his flock.

Mr Attard is claiming breach of human rights when he was arrested and detained for no reason

The case dates back to November 2012, when Mr Attard took court action against the Department of Veterinary Services in an attempt to stop it from slaughtering more of his sheep after the first culling took place. In court, he argued that the culled sheep, which were estimated to cost in the region of €520,000, had been tested and none of them were found to be sick.

Pending the court action, the rest of the herd were confined to his farm in Għarb where two police officers were stationed to ensure none of the animals would be removed and that their produce would not be sold. The 24-hour police surveillance has so far cost taxpayers more than €600,000.

Mr Attard had insisted in court that he had been telling the authorities since July 2010 to register the sheep and tag them. However, the Appeals Court ruled that Mr Attard had shirked his responsibility to register the sheep and that he had done nothing to get them registered for two whole years. It also threw out his complaint that he had not been given the opportunity to prove the sheep were not sick before the first batch was culled. The court said he should have done that before.

But in his application before the Constitutional Court, Mr Attard insisted that he had been denied the right to protect his animals from being “exterminated” and “savagely killed” in 2012.

The court had ruled that a previous culling of 216 of the farmer’s sheep was justified on the grounds of safeguarding public health.

But Mr Attard told the Constitutional Court that failing to register the animals did not automatically trigger suspicion that they were ill. This argument, he said, was contradicted by the test results on the culled animals which showed that none of them were sick.

He insisted that the authorities were duty-bound to protect public health by establishing whether any of his animals were sick by testing them.

He therefore called on the Constitutional Court to declare a breach of his human rights and award him damages.

Lawyer Joshua Grech signed the application.