The First Hall of the Civil Court has ruled Gordon Debono, his wife Yvette Debono, and a group of associated companies did not suffer breaches of their fundamental rights in connection with their 2020 arrest and the subsequent freezing orders imposed in an ongoing money-laundering case.
The judgment, delivered on Friday, dismisses all claims brought in constitutional proceedings filed in 2022.
The applicants had argued that their arrest was unlawful, that police failed to disclose key material, and that the criminal proceedings were compromised by what they described as a "fishing expedition" lacking an identified underlying offence.
They further claimed that their property rights, freedom of movement, and right to a fair hearing were violated, and sought the extinction of all criminal proceedings together with the lifting of freezing orders and the liquidation of alleged damages.
The recourse was filed by Gordon and Yvette Debono and eighteen companies linked to them, including HiLow Properties, Petroplus, KB Investments, KB Lines and Petrobunkers. The Commissioner of Police, the State Advocate and the Attorney General were named as respondents.
The case centred primarily on events of November 2020, when Gordon Debono was arrested and interrogated at the Financial Crimes Investigation Department in relation to transactions dating back to 2013. He claimed he was shown only secondary data in the form of a police-compiled spreadsheet and denied access to his accountant.
The applicants also maintained that the criminal charges were defective, particularly following a 2021 correction to the imputation sheet which extended the freezing order to additional entities.
The respondents countered that the arrest was based on reasonable suspicion of money laundering tied to oil-trafficking activity in Italy and unexplained corporate transactions.
They noted that the defence had explicitly stated before the Magistrates' Court on 25 November 2020 that they were not contesting the validity of the arrest.
Police bail had been refused because of a documented risk of absconding, and the freezing order was defended as a proportionate measure permitted under the European Convention.
On the corrections made to the charges in June 2021, the Attorney General argued that this was a lawful amendment, not a substitution that would nullify prior acts.
The applicants' lawyers had, at the time, agreed that already-heard evidence need not be reheard.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Spiteri Bailey first addressed the preliminary objections. The court held that the State Advocate was a necessary respondent since the applicants were effectively challenging a judicial decision.
It also upheld the non-exhaustion plea in part, noting that ordinary remedies were available to the applicants, particularly in relation to the freezing order, which they could seek to vary under the relevant statutory mechanism.
The court accepted a correction to a typographical error in the pleadings concerning the right invoked under the Fourth Protocol.
Turning to the merits, the court found no violation of the right to personal liberty, stressing that the defence had expressly refrained from contesting the arrest's validity in the original proceedings. It added that the Magistrates' Court had already deemed the arrest lawful.
On property rights and freedom of movement, the court held that the June 2021 sitting constituted a correction of the charges rather than a new case and that the freezing order and bail conditions therefore remained legally in force.
The court also rejected the claim that the right to a fair hearing had been breached, observing that the criminal proceedings remained pending and that no specific unfair consequence had been shown to have resulted from the 2021 correction.
It reiterated that its role was not to sit as an appellate court over the criminal jurisdiction.
Concluding that no breach of any constitutional or convention right had occurred, the Ccourt dismissed the recourse in its entirety.
The applicants were ordered to bear all costs.