A poultry-selling couple facing money laundering charges are claiming that their rights are being breached by a blanket freezing order that has effectively brought their business to a halt.
Anthony Manicaro and his wife Mary Grace, both from Tarxien, were arrested and arraigned in September after their village store landed under the focus of police investigations.
They were jointly arraigned and pleaded not guilty to alleged money laundering, as well as running an unlicensed financial institution in breach of financial services and banking law.
Prosecutors have told the court that customers would buy poultry, eggs and cheeselets at the shop, either on credit or else settling their bill by handing over their social security cheques, which the couple cashed, occasionally against a €5 charge.
A number of such customers had told investigators that this arrangement was “convenient” as it spared them long queues at the bank or post office.
While both husband and wife were granted bail, the court also upheld a request by the prosecution for a freezing order covering all their assets.
Two months down the line, that freezing order still stands.
The couple say the freezing order practically brought their business to a halt and deprived them of their sole source of income, since they could no longer dispose of their produce or engage in any financial transaction.
Moreover, the blanket order meant that all property, including that predating the charges and which the couple had acquired years ago, even through inheritance, was affected.
The couple have now resorted to the constitutional courts, filing an application in which they say that the unlimited freezing order has produced a “totally disproportionate effect.”
Citing judgments by the European Court of Human Rights, the applicants’ lawyers, Franco Debono and Amadeus Cachia, argued that the court was to ensure “a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realized.”
A court order was deemed to be “disproportionate” and thus in breach of the person’s fundamental rights, when it resulted in “an individual and excessive burden” upsetting the fair balance between protecting the right to property and safeguarding general interests, the lawyers argued.
In the light of such considerations, the applicants claimed that their rights were being breached by the freezing order which also subjected them to a severe punishment while they were still presumed innocent.
The applicants called upon the First Hall, Civil Court, in its constitutional jurisdiction, to provide effective and adequate remedies accordingly.