Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1498223
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 30 APRIL 2023 NEWS COURT NOTICE The Registrar, Civil Courts and Tribunals notifies that the First Hall of the Civil Court ordered the sale by Judicial Auction of the following property to be held in room numbered 78, nearby the Courts Archives, Level -1, Courts of Justice, Republic Street, Valletta. Date Time Judicial Sale No Property 30 th May, 2023 10.30am 33/20 - AZ Casha Maria Assunta (ID 101749M) et Vs Cutajar Joseph Mary (ID 166055M) et 1. The tenement numbered number 55, 56, 57 corner with number 17 previously number 44, Triq Rokku Buhagiar with Triq il-Parroċċa Qrendi, free and enuncumbert from any burden, ground rent, servitudes or any including its airspace and subterrain valued at €560,000; 2. The tenement known as the Mill number 73 previously 31, in Triq il-Kbira, Qrendi, free and unencumbered from any burden, ground rent, servitudes or other right valued at €140,000; 3. The half undivided share of tenement number 4 and 5, Alley number 4, in Triq il-Kbira, Qrendi, free and unencumbered from any burden, ground rent, servitudes or any right and including its airspace and sub terrain valued at €185,000; 4. The tenement numbered number 3, in Triq Misraħ is-Sinjura previously Triq San Nikola Qrendi, free and unencumbered from any burden, ground rent, servitudes or any other right and including its airspace and sub terrain, occupied by third parties and valued at €250,000; 5. The field known as tas-Siġra in Triq RAF Krendi, limits of Qrendi and situated in a zone known as tal-Għarix, approximately measuring 1032 meters square and accessible from a gate leading to a walking private passage and with the right of well water from the adjacent third parties property bounded on the southwest by property of Jonathan Cassar or his successors in title, west and north by property of Joseph Camilleri or his successors in title, southeast by property of one known as mill-Grigal ma' Massa or his successors in title or other correct boundaries and annual and perpetual ground rent of thirty cents payable yearly to the Lands Department valued at €40,000. 6. The field known as Burbagar, limits of Qrendi and approximately measuring 1028 square meters and divided in two parts. The first part measures approxitamely 411 square meters accessible and is directly accessible from an alley that abuts to Triq tal-Providenza and bounded from the south by the alley, from the east by property of the Farrugia family or their successors in title and from the north of the Muscat family or their successors in title or other correct boundaries and second part bounded from the West by property of Farrugia family or their successors in title and from the North by property of the family knows as ta' Smina or their successors in title or other correct boundaries and valued at €45,000; 7. The field known as of San Mattew or Maqluba, in Triq il-Wied iż- Żurrieq, limits of Qrendi, approximately measures of 1113 square meters bounded from the west by Triq Wied iż-Zurrieq, Southeast by property of Michael Farrugia or his successors in title and on the East by property of Gianni Cassar or his successors in title or other correct boundaries, free and unencumbered from any burden, ground rent, servitude or any other right and including its airspace and sub terrain valued at €35,000. 8. Undivided half (½) of the field measuring approximately of 777 square meters known as of Żellieqat, accessible from a road known as Taz-Zellieqa, limits of Qrendi, free and unencumbered from any burden, ground rent, servitude or any other right and including its airspace and sub terrain valued at €12,000. 9. The field known as 'tal-Ħniena', in Triq il-Madonna tal-Hniena, Żurrieq limits of Qrendi, accessible from a private passage which is common with the other land owners and approximately measure 1798, accessibly from a passage and with the right of well water with other parties and an old common room between four fields and bounded from the North, West and East by property of a family known as tal-Konka or his successors in title or other correct boundaries, free and unencumbered from any burden, ground rent, servitude or any other right and including its airspace and sub terrain, occupied by third parties and valued at €80,000 Further details can be obtained from the website: https://ecourts.gov.mt/onlineservices/JudicialSales The bidders taking part in the auction must present their identity card Gaetana Aquilina For the Registrar of Civil Courts and Tribunals MATTHEW AGIUS THE Chinese directors of the now-shuttered Leisure Clothing textiles factory, currently in jail for human trafficking, are claiming to have suffered a breach of human rights. The two Chinese nationals, for- mer managing director Han Bin and ex-marketing director Jia Liu filed constitutional proceedings last month, challenging their con- viction. Han and Jia were both handed six-year jail terms in January after being convicted on appeal of traf- ficking and exploiting Vietnam- ese and Chinese employees at the Bulebel-based factory. They were found guilty of forcing employees to work long days with few to no breaks, in illegal working condi- tions. In an application filed on 1 March before the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitution- al jurisdiction, Han, Jia and the company claim that in their par- ticular circumstances, where their acquittal had been overturned on appeal, the court failed to hear evidence or witnesses or send the acts back to the Court of Magis- trates to be heard and evaluated there. They claimed this amount- ed to a violation to their right to a fair hearing. Lawyers Jose Herrera, Pio Val- letta, Jason Azzopardi and Ther- ese Comodini Cachia signed the application. "Taking into account the cir- cumstances of the case, the nature of the evidence and testimony and the context in which the testimo- ny and the proceedings them- selves started out as a case about employment law and ended up as proceedings about criminal of- fences, one cannot fail to conclude that the case ought not to have… been determined without direct assessment of the testimony given by certain witnesses," they said in their application. One of the primary reasons for which the acquittal had been over- turned, they said, was the Court of Criminal Appeal's understanding of a particular witness "when that testimony manifestly established the opposite." The witness, who they claim, said that his company would not receive payment from the defend- ants, but from an agency called Vi- hatico, had been misunderstood by the court as establishing that "once a prospective worker signed the contracts, Leisure Company Limited received the sum of 600 American Dollars from Vihatico as payment." In the case of Liu, who had been acquitted of all charges by the Court of Magistrates, the fact that he had been convicted on the basis of testimony contradicting the finding of the court of first instance, had also led to him be- ing deprived of the opportunity to have that testimony assessed a second time by the Court of Crim- inal Appeal. The application also states that Leisure Clothing Ltd itself had suffered a breach of its fair hearing rights as it had not been a party to the proceedings and neither had it been proven that the defendants had also been charged as a judicial representative of the company. "As a consequence, a judgment could never have been handed down against the company and it is emphasised that it was not able to defend itself [from the charg- es]." The constitutional application asks the court to declare a breach of the right to a fair hearing, de- clare that Leisure Clothing Ltd had been punished and its assets confiscated without it being a par- ty to the criminal proceedings and therefore unable to defend itself. The court was also asked to de- clare null the judgments of the Court of Magistrates and the Court of Criminal Appeal, as well as to declare that if it disagreed with the first court's evaluation of the facts, the Court of Criminal Appeal should have sent the acts of the case back to the Court of Magistrates to evaluate them an- ew. A second application filed before the First Hall of the Civil Court's Asset Recovery Section, asked the court to declare that the assets seized from Bin Han and Jia Liu were not profits or income from offences under the Dangerous Drugs Act, nor property acquired or obtained using such profits or income and therefore revoke the Court of Criminal Appeal's order for their confiscation. This application was also filed by the same lawyers. The Leisure Clothing saga The company had been a major textile manufacturer, sewing gar- ments for high-end labels such as Emporio Armani and Karen Millen. Owned by Chinese firm CICET, it had ceased to operate in 2017 after the arrest of the two directors. The human trafficking abuses had come to light in October 2014 after several of the now-closed Bulebel factory's Vietnamese em- ployees were arrested while at- tempting to leave the island using false Italian identity documents. The workers had told the police that they had not been paid the agreed wages and that their pass- ports had been withheld by the company. A police investigation followed. A string of Vietnamese employ- ees had then testified about how they would only be paid €200- €300 monthly – half the amount they had been promised, and well below the minimum wage – for working 12 hours a day, seven days a week and had their pass- ports confiscated by the company upon their arrival. Leisure Clothing directors in jail for human trafficking claim fundamental rights breach The Chinese-owned clothing factory Leisure Clothing closed its doors in 2017