A dog breeder handed a suspended sentence, a €20,000 fine and a 25-year ban from keeping dogs, will have to be sentenced again after his punishment was quashed on appeal over a technical shortcoming in the judgment. 

Police and animal welfare officials had confiscated some 45 dogs from Antonio Vella’s home in Birżebbuġa in October 2021, a few days after the man had been found guilty of breaching animal welfare laws.

The Magistrates’ Court had condemned him to a two-year jail term suspended for four years, besides the hefty fine and the ban on keeping dogs or applying for a licence to do so for 25 years. 

Vella filed an appeal on various grounds, including the fact that the first court had not respected formalities in terms of article 382 of the Criminal Code. 

One of the dogs rescued in Vella's Birżebbuġa home. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

That provision laid down that the court was to state the facts which formed the basis of the conviction, the relative punishment as well as all the relative articles of law.

The appellant’s lawyer argued that the Magistrates’ Court had first stated twice over that the first charge against Vella had not been proven, then, further on, in the operative part of the judgment declared that the accused was being found guilty of all the charges. 

The first charge related to the allegation that the accused had needlessly caused the animals pain and suffering and had also neglected them. 

When considering that first ground of appeal, the court, presided over by Mr Justice Neville Camilleri, observed that it was not clear whether the first court had found the accused guilty of all the charges or not.

Citing caselaw, Mr Justice Camilleri observed that the first court should have “stated exactly and expressly” the offences of which it found the accused guilty, stating briefly what the offence consisted of. 

In this case, the court of appeal did not know exactly which offences Vella had been found guilty of, went on the judge.

For this reason, the court upheld the appeal, ordering the acts of the case to be sent back to the first court and the accused to revert to the position he had been in immediately prior to sentencing. 

The judgement is to be delivered afresh in terms of law. 

Lawyers Albert Zerafa and Joey Reno Vella assisted the appellant.