The judge presiding over the case filed by clerical sex abuse victims, who are claiming financial compensation from the Church, turned down the victims' request to abstain from hearing the case because he is the president of the local Radio Maria Association.

Mr Justice Joseph R Micallef ruled there was no valid reason at law why he should step down from hearing the case. 

Mr Justice Micallef, who is presiding over the victims’ case for financial compensation against the Church and two priests defrocked from the Missionary Society of St Paul, is the president of the local Radio Maria Association.

The association, which forms part of an international family spreading the five continents, promotes the “promulgation of the evangelical message of joy and hope... according to the teaching of the magisterium of the Catholic Church, with a clear and rich Marian spirituality”.

The case for compensation started in October 2013 after former priests Godwin Scerri, 77, and Charles Pulis, 68, were found guilty and sentenced to five and six years’ imprisonment respectively for abusing 11 boys in their care at St Joseph Home in Santa Venera in the 1980s and 1990s.

Lawyers representing the Curia are arguing that the request for financial compensation is time barred while the victims are insisting it is not because the Church had offered help in the form of psychiatric and psychological care.

Lawyers Patrick Valentino and Franco Vassallo are representing the victims.