Leisure Clothing workers 'deceived by agents', court hears

A worker told a court how she had paid €2600 in fees to an agent in order to secure a job at Leisure Clothing in Malta.

Liao Pingschen, from China, and Hoang Thi Cam Van, from Vietnam, gave similar testimonies of how they were deceived by agents, testifying that they were shown a sample contract that they agreed to and were then presented with a second contract immediately prior to their departure for Malta. They had paid the agents €1600 and €2600 respectively.

The Vietnamese worker said she was told that there was “something wrong” with the first contract and noted that the conditions were very different to those she had agreed to, but as she had paid 70 million Vietnamese Dong (€2600) in order to get this far, and taken out a bank loan of 100 million Dong to finance her job change, she felt that the turning point had been passed.

Speaking through a translator, she told the court that if she does not repay the loan in three years, her home would be reposessed, adding that she had not repaid anything yet, because in her eight months working at Leisure Clothing she “had not been paid”. Her family had been to repaying the interest to the bank.

The witness claimed Han Bin had spoken to her in his office, and had said that he “didn’t care about the agency contract in Vietnam, but would only follow the Chinese contract”.

When she came to Malta she said she found the working hours were different to those agreed and she was forced to work a lot of overtime. She did not do anything about the situation as she didn’t understand the language and had no one to turn to in Malta.

The witness told the court that she had asked Han Bin about the necessity of keeping her passport, to which he reportedly answered that Maltese law allowed him to keep her passport when she worked for him.

The magistrate, leafing through a translation of her contract, noted that she had agreed to work overtime, however. “She had agreed to being paid the allowances directly by the factory and recorded on her account – it means that she agreed that her salary and overtime would be kept and administered by the company, and it stipulated that she was at liberty to withdraw from the account”.

Testimony was a laborious and time-consuming process, with every question necessitating a translation from English to Mandarin or Vietnamese and its answer being translated from Mandarin or Vietnamese to English.

Magistrate Carol Peralta continued to hear the prosecution’s witnesses in the compilation of evidence against the directors of Leisure Clothing, a textile factory owned by the Chinese government.

Passions were running high throughout the hearing, with dramatic episodes interrupting the compilation of evidence twice. 

The magistrate ejected one Maltese man from the courtroom for interrupting a witness’ testimony from the public gallery. Soon after, the magistrate warned the lawyers in parte civile that their facial expressions after every question asked by the court was not to his liking, saying he would also have them also ejected from the courtroom. 

At one point a shouting match erupted between the lawyers on both sides and the magistrate. The magistrate then ordered the lawyers into his chambers where they remained for a good half hour. 

In the four-hour-long hearing, only two prosecution witnesses were heard, none of which dealt with establishing whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a criminal trial. This in spite of the fact that the prosecution had been given till today to provide this evidence.

The magistrate angrily rebuked the prosecution for not having exhibited any evidence linking the two accused to their alleged positions in the company to date. He condemned the use of “disloyal tactics”, as the court felt it had been misled into thinking that today's sitting would be dealing with prima facie evidence. He noted the damage already done to the public’s perception of the company. “Mud slinging, even if it doesn’t stick in court, will stick in the minds of the public,” he reminded them.

The magistrate said that he had started hearing the case yesterday with the clear intention of establishing whethere there was sufficient evidence to satisfy the prima facie requirement. He had allowed this to continue today in order to hear evidence that may justify this requirement. 

“In the four hours of today’s sitting, the court only heard two witnesses”, remarked the court. “Whilst the proof of the positions held by the two defendants at Leisure Clothing is necessary for the court to conclude the existence or otherwise of prima facie grounds to issue a bill of indictment (and hence, a criminal trial), it was up to the prosecution to provide these witnesses," said the magistrate.

The case will continue next week.