LORD STRICKLAND Vs. GIUSEPPE GRIMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is concerned with the validity of the election in July 1928, of two of the appellants, Messrs. Mifsud and Borg to be members of the Senate of Malta, representatives there of the Trades Union Council of the island. The Court of Appeal in Malta, by a judgment of 14 August 1928, has declared their election to be null and void and this is an appeal from that judgment. A preliminary question of serious importance at once arises : viz., whether His Majesty can be advised further to entertain the appeal, and their Lordships, in the first instance at all events, must direct their minds to the consideration of that question to the exclusion of every other.

(2.) Although special leave to appeal had been granted by His Majesty in Council, it was recognized that it was not thereby intended that the Board, with all the facts before it, should be precluded from reconsidering whether the appeal was competent, and counsel on both sides before their Lordships agreed that that problem could only be satisfactorily solved after the Board had become seized of the history and nature of the controversy out of which it emerged. The arguments accordingly proceeded on that footing to their conclusion. Their Lordships will follow the same course, and before specifically dealing with this preliminary issue, will, without canvassing in detail the legal and constitutional questions discussed before them, give some account of the circumstances which have led up to the present situation.

(3.) Responsible self-government for Malta in internal affairs was in 1921 granted by His Majesty through the Malta Constitution Letters Patent, 1921. The Maltese Legislature thereby brought into existence consists of two houses, the Senate and the Legislative Assembly.