Appeals court confirms Neville Gafa' judgment on €6,500 overtime payments

A judgment in a court case filed by the health authorities against former government liaison officer Neville Gafa’, over €6,500 in allegedly unjustified overtime payments, has been confirmed on appeal.

In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, the court of appeal confirmed the decision of the court of first instance which was handed down in February whereby the magistrates’ court had concluded that the

applicants had adopted the wrong procedure when seeking to claim the refund allegedly owed to the department.

The case centred around the period when Gafa’ was appointed liaison officer for the Office of the Prime Minister at the Ministry of Health, and had claimed €6538.63 for hours worked overtime.

Civil proceedings were instituted in 2017 in an attempt to retrieve the outlay.

Then Health Ministry chief of staff Christian Zammit testified that a specific claims form had been issued by finance authorities after complaints were received about employee’s long work hours and inadequate compensation.

Gafa’ had told the court that he used to work on all days of the week and claimed that the overtime payments had been approved after consultation with his superiors.

However, the medical authorities exhibited Gafa’s employment contract with the Foundation for Medical Services in court. It stated that “the remunerative structure agreed above is full and sufficient compensation to the Employee for any and all hours worked in

the proper fulfilment of his duties and the Employee waives any claim in connection therewith.”

Despite this, the court of magistrates had pointed out that the case had been filed in terms of a procedure allowing the government to sue for its debts. The court noted that this procedure was never meant to cover all types of debts, but only those debts specifically mentioned by the legislator, namely those related to services, supplies, rent, licence and other fees or taxes due.

The court had ruled that the legal provision did not cover overtime payments, and had rejected the health authorities’ claim.

In an appeal judgment confirming the lower court’s decision delivered by Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff, the court declared that article 466 of the code of organization and civil procedure, under which the appellants had filed their case, was not intended to cover all types of government debts.

The judge also turned down the appellants’ claim that the magistrates’ court had exceeded the limits of its powers by raising the procedural issue ex officio.

The judge said that the first court had acted correctly and interpreted the provision according to the spirit of the law, as the matter was a procedural one and concerned a matter of public order.

There were other civil proceedings available to the authorities to claim back the allegedly undue payments, noted the court regarding the merits.