Court urges Identità not to deport depressed TCN

A judge has appealed to Identità to allow a third-country national (TCN), who had gone through “severe depression”, not to be deported after she was late in applying for her residence card.

Mr Justice Laurence Mintoff made his appeal in a decision after an Indian woman asked the court to consider her humanitarian case in an appeal.

While the court abstained from deciding in favour of the woman, the sentence formally appealed to the authorities to allow her to reapply for a job.

The judge said that, besides the legal considerations the court must follow, the authorities should consider that the Indian national had been working in Malta on a regular basis. 

“And it was solely due to a mental health condition that she failed to submit her application for the renewal of the single work and residence permit within the prescribed time.

“This court recommends to the competent authorities that the appellant be given the opportunity to regularise her position by being allowed to apply anew for permission to work in Malta, without the need to be compelled to leave Malta in order to be able to apply for such a work permit,” the judge said in his nine-page judgment.

The woman had been working with OZO Malta since 2021. She was working legally until her residence card, or single work permit, expired in December 2022. She then applied for a renewal of her work permit, which must be renewed every year, in August 2023.

Identità refused the permit the following January on the basis that she had submitted an application while she was in Malta illegally because she had not applied on time.

She appealed the decision in May 2024 before the Immigration Appeals Board, which ruled, in May 2025, that it would not consider the case because she had filed her objection to Identità’s decision outside the time limit for an appeal to be considered.

In submissions before the court, the woman’s legal counsel argued that she had been unable to apply in time because of her mental health condition of severe depression, which had been aggravated by news of her father’s passing. Ordering her deportation was not a proportional response to applying late, lawyers Adrian Sciberras and Karl Cordina argued.

Replying to those arguments, Identità said the law should take precedence over humanitarian considerations and arguments about proportionality.

Mr Justice Mintoff said he could not rule in favour of the woman and, therefore, abstained from considering the appeal. However, he called on the authorities to allow her to remain in Malta and apply for a job instead of being forced to leave the country and apply for work from abroad.

Identita was represented by Dr Chanel Bantick and Dr Corinne Pace state advocate.