Two nuns linked to allegations of abuse at Lourdes Home orphanage in Gozo did not turn up to testify in court on Monday due to medical reasons.
Sr Josephine Anne Sultana and Sr Dorothy Mizzi informed the court through lawyers that they could not attend to testify due to medical appointments. They will be testifying online during the next sitting appointed for January 27 – on the request of lawyer Lara Dimitrijevic who is representing the victims.
The nuns were meant to take the stand before Mr Justice Mark Simiana, who is presiding over the constitutional case filed by two of the victims: Carmen Muscat and Rosanne Saliba.
In their case, filed against the State, the two women are claiming that the State failed to protect them and are seeking compensation for their ordeal.
Earlier this year Muscat and Saliba told a court how they were subject to sexual abuse and regular beatings in the Church-run orphanage, run by the Dominican Sisters, they lived in during the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Abuse at the Għajnsielem home is alleged to have stretched for decades.
The Church first acknowledged it in 1999, when it set up a commission which concluded that the allegations were unfounded.
Claims then came to public attention in 2006, when survivors ranging in age from their 20s to 40s described horrific abuse on the TV show Bondi+.
In 2008, a second Church commission found evidence of “inadmissible behaviour involving minors” at the home.
The Gozo Bishop at the time, Mario Grech, issued a statement asking survivors for forgiveness and ordered that the commission’s recommendations be implemented.
The police could not arraign anyone as the case was time-barred.
In 2011, police launched a probe into Lourdes Home and two of its nuns, Sr Josephine Anne Sultana and Sr Dorothy Mizzi, in connection with an abuse claim filed by a boy dating back five years prior.
Two of the survivors then initiated a constitutional case against the State for failing to take action.
In January a third nun implicated in the case died: Sr Carmelita Borg was the Mother Superior for the Dominican nuns and was responsible for the Lourdes Home orphanage in Għajnsielem at the time the alleged abuse took place.