New law graduates go to court over warrants delay

Eleven law graduates who have been waiting for nearly eight months for their warrants have filed court proceedings over what they describe as an unjustified delay.

Sarah Vassallo Ciliberti, Rosanna Ciliberti, Raphael Sammut Demarco, Conrad Borg Manchè, Jurgen Vella, Pearl Agius, Yasmin Joy Attard, Sean Cutajar, Maria Miriam Bezzina, Daniel Vancell and Marcus Stefan Ciantar filed a judicial protest this morning against the Justice Minister, the University of Malta and the Commission for the Administration of Justice.

The plaintiffs, all of whom had completed their Masters in Advocacy course at the University of Malta last September, said that the University had always adopted the practice of holding its graduation ceremony in November of the same year of completion of the course of studies.

It was also a long-established practice that the warrant exams for lawyers are held in December and January, to allow candidates time to receive the certificates they needed to apply for their warrants.

But although a notice had been published in the Government Gazette last October, setting the date for the warrant exams in January and July, the plaintiffs say that the University had chosen to postpone the graduation ceremony to after March 2023, thereby depriving the graduands of the opportunity to obtain their warrants this year.

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Their request to be issued their graduation certificates before the delayed ceremony was refused, despite this practice having previously been employed during the COVID-19 crisis.

The plaintiffs also stated that despite being informed by the Office of the Chief Justice that they had passed the first and second parts of their warrant exams, they had not been given any indication of what was required to fulfil the recently introduced requirement of being recommended as a “fit and proper person” by the Committee for Advocates and Legal Procurators.

They lamented the absence of guidance or useful information about how they must proceed in order to obtain the warrants under the Public Seal of Malta, without which they are prohibited from practising their profession and informed the defendants that they would be holding them responsible for damages and costs.

Lawyer Marco Ciliberti signed the judicial protest.