Come back in 2010, plaintiff told

An Italian court has told a 98-year-old plaintiff to come back in 2010 for the next hearing in her legal battle over property rights - more than 10 years after the case first opened.

Amalia Cuccioletti, who was born in 1907, launched the suit against some of her relatives in 1997. An initial hearing was held in 2001, but the court in the central Italian town of Macerata has decided to fix the next session for 9.30am on March 25, 2010, Ansa news agency reported.

"The court of Macerata has hit a new national low with this," Cuccioletti's lawyers were quoted as saying, referring to Italy's notoriously slow legal system. In Italy, it takes on average 3041 days to obtain a definitive sentence in a civil case.