A judge has sent a judgment back to the magistrate’s court after noting that a perjury conviction against a man over his marital status had a missing date.

Mr Justice Neville Camilleri ruled that the case be sent back to the presiding magistrate to fix the mistake and deliver judgment again.

He was ruling on an appeal filed by the Attorney General before the Court of Criminal Appeal over a conviction of Danny David Doneo who was found guilty of taking a false oath before Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit in April 2016.

Doneo had been charged with falsifying a court decree, bigamy and perjury.

The court had heard how the man had allegedly entered into a second marriage in August 2002 on the strength of a court decree, which he claimed had dissolved his first. That document, however, turned out to have been forged.

The anomaly had only been noticed in 2016 when Doneo's first wife had tried to renew her passport.

However, Doneo was cleared of bigamy and forgery charges in October last year, with the court only finding him guilty of perjury and was sentenced to four months in prison, suspended for 18 months.

The Attorney General appealed, claiming that the first court had failed to also apply a general interdiction, which should follow a conviction for perjury.

But Mr Justice Neville Camilleri did not rule on the merits of the appeal after noticing that the judgment in question only specified the month and year but not the day on which it was handed down.

The judge noted that although this did not automatically nullify the judgment, since it was evident that this was a clerical error, the date was an essential part of the court document.

Not to deprive the appellant of his right to file an appeal on the merits, the judge sent the acts of the proceedings back to the Court of Magistrates to re-deliver the judgment.

Lawyer Matthew Xuereb assisted Doneo in the proceedings.