Judge Mark Chetcuti rejected a court application filed with urgency by civil society NGO Repubblika asking for the appointments of three judges and three magistrates to be blocked.

The court ruled that "no irrevocable prejudice" would be created by the appointments and hence rejected Repubblika's appeal.

In its court application signed by lawyers Jason Azzopardi and Simon Busuttil, both Nationalist Party MPs, Repubblika asked the court to stop the appointments until a new system of choosing judges is introduced.

The NGO said that the government had accepted the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission recommendations to introduce a different method of appointing judges in a way to guarantee their judicial independence.

Ironically, Azzopardi and Busuttil had in the last legislature, voted in Parliament for the creation of a Judicial Appointments Committee that introduced the concept of screening and recommendation by a body independent of the government.