For the administration of justice to be truly fair and just, there exists the notion of legal certainty. This ensures that when the time limit for appeal elapses after a judgment is delivered by a Court of First Instance or after a judgment is delivered by the Court of Appeal, the matter between those two or more parties stops there.
Subject to very limited exceptions in the case of a retrial, the matter is decided (resjudicata). And no person involved in the proceedings (whether a natural person or a company or any other entity) may file subsequent proceedings against the sameperson/s, on the same object and on the same juridical fact.
In other words, once the case is closed, the matter cannot be opened up again.
There are many reasons for this, the first being that legal certainty must be ensured to give finality and closure, and to ensure that judgments given by courts are duly executed. Another reason is that without the principle of res judicata, parties would be free to litigate and re-litigate lawsuits ad infinitum, something which negatively affects the administration of justice not only in principle, but also in practice.
The above was precisely what the Civil Court First Hall (presided by Justice Audrey Demicoli) dealt with in a decree delivered on October 14, 2022 in the names of, ‘Mosta local council vs WM Environmental Limited’.
In this case, the plaintiff claimed the refund of €21,560.14 since it argued that the defendant company was in default of one of the tenders which had been awarded to the defendant company. It argued that the sum of €32,019.75 (the sum due to the defendant company for one of the tenders), had to be reduced to €10,673.25 due to this alleged default under the contract. The plaintiff argued that 60 default notices had been issued against the defendant company and these need to be factored into the final sum owed to the defendant.
The defendant company raised the plea (eċċezzjoni) of res judicata. It pointed out that the merits of this case had already been decided in a judgment delivered by the Civil Court First Hall on December 9, 2021. The judgment referred to was between the same parties but it was WM Environmental Limited that was the plaintiff and the Mosta Local Council that was the defendant.
In the judgment of December 9, 2021, the council had been ordered by the court to pay the sum of €44,251 to WMEnvironmental Limited, a judgment that had not been appealed. Now, in the first proceedings – decided on December 9, 2021 – the Mosta Local Council was in default (kontumaċi).
This means that the council failed to appear for the first sitting before the Civil Court. The first case was filed as a special summary proceeding (giljottina) and meaning that the defendant (in that case, the council) had to appear during the first sitting to adequately convince the court that there were enough reasons for the court to decide the matter via normal procedure and not via special summary proceeding.
But alas, the council did not do so. And this is what led the first court to accede to the claims of WM Environmental Limited.
Back to the proceedings filed by the council against WM Environmental Limited, i.e.the second proceedings filed, the Civil Court First Hall was faced with this factual context and had to determine whether the matter was truly decided or not – whether the matter was res judicata.
The Civil Court First Hall carefully analysed the three elements that must subsist for the plea of res judicata to prevail. The first element is that both cases need to involve the same parties. This was indeed the case since the only difference was that in the second case, the proceedings had been filed in the inverse, but still, the exact same parties were involved. Therefore, the first element was satisfied.
The second element is that both cases need to be on the same object. Now, the object of the first case was a sum of money that WM Environmental Limited claimed was due from the Mosta Local Council in relation to the two tenders. In this regard, the court noted that the argument which was raised by the council in the first case was actually the basis for the second case. Thus, the second element was also satisfied.
The third element is the juridical fact upon which the case is filed – i.e. the story, the facts, which led to the case being filed. In this regard, the Civil Court First Hall noted that the first Civil Court had already expressed itself on the facts of the case in a clear and unequivocal manner.
The above is what led the Civil Court First Hall to decide that the lawsuit was indeed res judicata and abstained from taking further cognizance of the case.
Dr Celine Cuschieri Debono is Junior Associate at Azzopardi, Borg and Associates Advocates.