An appeal court has annulled a judgment over a marriage breakdown blamed on the husband, because the first court failed to take note of the man’s final submissions during the COVID-19 lockdown.

This prejudiced the man’s right to a fair hearing, the court ruled.

The man’s wife had filed a personal separation suit back in 2015, claiming that their marriage had irretrievably broken down on account of factors attributable to the husband.

The man rebutted those claims, arguing that marital life was no longer possible because of causes attributable to the applicant herself. 

As judgment drew near, the respondent was granted a term, ending in mid-December 2019, for the filing of his note of submissions. 

However, the case file could not be traced in the court registry so the time limit was extended to March 30, 2020. 

Meanwhile, the normal functioning of the law courts was disrupted by the lockdown imposed by the health authorities to stem the spread of COVID-19. 
The running of all legal time limits was also suspended, including the time limit governing the filing of submissions by the man’s lawyer. 

The lawyer learnt that judgment was to be delivered nonetheless so he submitted his submissions to a court official via email on April 27.

Two days later, he received a reply informing him that judgment was expected the following day. 

Judgment was indeed delivered. The court upheld the woman’s claims, liquidating the couple’s community of acquests, ordering the husband to pay maintenance in respect of their minor child and authorizing her to continue to live in the matrimonial home.

Her husband appealed, claiming that the decision by the Family Court was wrong and unjust, not only on the merits but also since it had been delivered when legal time limits were suspended and with no apparent reference to his lawyer’s note of submissions.

The court of appeal, presided over by Mr Justice Giannino Caruana Demajo, as president, and Mr Justices Tonio Mallia and Anthony Ellul, observed that the judgment had made no reference to the respondent’s submissions.

A hard copy of the submissions had only been attached to a note filed by his lawyer in May, after judgement had been delivered. There appeared to be no evidence about what had become of the soft copy emailed prior to the judgment.

On the other hand, the wife’s note of submissions was included in the records and the court had referred to it when delivering judgment.

The “sole conclusion” of the appeal court was that the Family Court had passed judgment when the legal time limit was still suspended and no note appeared to have been taken of the lawyer’s submissions filed via email.

That obviously prejudiced the husband’s right to a fair hearing, said the court.

The sole effective remedy was to annul the judgment and send the case back to the Family Court to reassess the merits after taking note of the respondent’s submissions.

Lawyer Michael Tanti-Dougall assisted the husband.