A lawsuit is no joyride; court cases often involve long-winded distress, anger and a feeling of uncontrollability. Creditors often do not wish to pass through the dogfight that a court can be, unless they have some sort of assurance that the pretence they would be suing for could be enforced and will actually lead to payment. This is not foregone; it is wrong to assume that an amount awarded by the court will always be recovered.
Oftentimes, judgments are not complied with, perhaps due to the debtor’s unwillingness to abide by the decision of the court. In time, Maltese parlance created a notorious idiomatic phrase referring to judgments that are not complied with – ‘