The case of the missing towed vehicle

Having your car towed away is an aggravating experience but imagine how bad it is when the vehicle is removed from a legal parking bay.

And, to add insult to injury, you go and collect your vehicle from the impounding car park only to realise that it is not there. Hours later, you finally learn that the car was taken somewhere else due to a misunderstanding between the towing contractor and the police.

This is where Ombudsman Joseph Sammut is roped in to try and bring some form of relief or justice to the public in distress.

The towing incident is one of a series of serious, comical and sometimes bizarre claims the Ombudsman has had to face during the past year - some of which are listed in his recently published Case Notes.

The Ombudsman established that when the complainant parked her car on the eve of the village feast, there were no mobile "No Parking" signs to indicate that parking would not be allowed in that area on the following day.

The woman in question called at the police station, forked out the Lm45 fine and was told to collect her car from the Mosta Technopark - only to find out, upon her arrival, that the car was not there.

After making several telephone calls to try and locate her car, she was informed it was in Qawra. But no police officer knew where the car was. Visibly upset, after missing half a day's work, the complainant again sought information about her car's whereabouts from the police station of her own village and was finally told to call the Qawra police again where a towing company employee finally shed light on the car's whereabouts.

The complainant was eventually refunded the towing fee and the Ombudsman urged the towing contractor to compensate the woman for the inconvenience.

Mr Sammut lambasted the police for failing to contact the owner of the car prior to towing.

The Ombudsman also delved into the case of a high-ranking former police officer who resigned in 1990 and was seriously injured in December 1998 by a bomb that had been placed under his car.

When he sought compensation awarded by the government to victims of crime, the Justice Ministry informed him that his request could not be considered unless clear and irrefutable evidence emerged that the case was directly related to his former duties.

But the Ombudsman concluded that no evidence had emerged that the attempt on the complainant's life occurred as a consequence of any reason other than his official capacity in the Police Force prior to his retirement.

Mr Sammut's recommendation was finally accepted and the complainant was awarded ex gratia compensation.

A number of public service officials also resorted to the Ombudsman to try and justify why they were excluded from promotion exercises. Complaints against the Malta Environment and Planning Authority were also not uncommon.

However, not every complainant had his way. For example the owners of a plot of land had no choice but to abide by the Mepa directorate's order to remove all rubbish and construction waste within 30 days - even though they were not the offenders.

In another complaint, two employees of a travel industry company claimed that Maltapost refused to refund a sum of about Lm800 or give them stamps to the same value in exchange for stamps which were no longer valid for use as postage stamps.

The Ombudsman expressed his view that Maltapost's "unreasonable" decision to limit the exchange of invalidated stamps to mint stamps was not valid at law. He recommended that the company should refund complainants.