TT-Line is set to face court over 29 animal cruelty offences after failing to convince the Supreme Court of Tasmania that the charges should be reviewed.
The companies lawyer, Robert Taylor, appeared in court last month in an effort to get the charges laid by Biosecurity Tasmania reviewed.
On Monday afternoon Chief Justice Alan Blow ruled the motion to review was “devoid of merit.”
TT-Line had been charged after the suffocation of 16 polo horses on a Spirit of Tasmania voyage in 2018.
One of the 29 charges related to conduct that was “reasonably likely to result in unreasonable and unjustifiable pain and suffering to the animals.”
While the other 28 related to alleged failure to keep horses individually stalled for trips across the Bass Strait.
The company pleaded not guilty to all charges in November last year in the Burnie Magistrates court, and sought to have the charges reviewed.
In his ruling Justice Blow said the proceeding had been delayed unnecessarily.
“The hearing before the learned magistrate has been delayed by months as a result of unmeritorious arguments and a motion for the review of rulings that were plainly correct,” Justice Blow said.
“It is in the public interest that the charges in the Magistrates Court be heard and determined with as little further delay as possible.”