Police cannot close down establishment without court order

The First Hall of the Civil Court today ordered the Commissioner of Police to desist from closing down the Villa Brasserie, which forms part of the Hotel Meridien at Balluta Bay in St Julian’s, or hindering it from organising parties, weddings, conferences or other meetings.

In a court sentence handed down by Mr Justice Joseph R. Micallef, the court said the police order could not be used against a business establishment’s legal conduct.

The police was found to have taken the law in its hands by the court, after “threatening” to close down the premises, following a judicial protest filed by the entrepreneur Marin Hili, who lives close to the bar and restaurant.

A spokesperson for the Villa Brasserie said Hili had filed the protest against restaurant owners Jeremy Cassar Torregiani and Mario Hammett. “Over the past several months he sent innumerable letters, I believe over thirty, complaining practically every day to the police and putting unlawful pressure, to my mind and to that of my clients, to stop any function advertised or held at The Villa,” Dr Kenneth Grima said.

The Court held that the Commissioner of Police may not decide unilaterally to close down a commercial operation on its own initiative and without due process of Law.  The Court upheld Cassar Torregiani’s thesis that is only the court that may close a shop, restaurant or other commercial premises and not the Commissioner of Police acting in his executive capacity.

“I believe this decision breaks new ground. Until only last week, and during the hearing of the case, Superintendent Stephen Gatt insisted with the judge that the police have the right, if they believe the provisions of a particular permit are being breached, to close down a commercial premises.

“As a result of this decision the police are now prohibited from taking the law in their owns hands and acting as judge and jury in first closing the premises and afterwards seeing what a court of law has to say,” Dr Grima said.

TheCourt ordered that the police should first obtain a court ruling that decides in the Commissioner’s favour or in favour of the competent authorities, to close down a commercial premises or withhold it from holding an event.