Herrera lambasts “inadequate” location for juvenile court

These sittings were currently being held a room at the Centru Hidma Socjali at Santa Venera. Herrera explained that this building “was never intended as a court, and is not equipped either”.

“This building gives the impressing of being an office and has neither the appearance of the dignity of a Court,” Herrera insisted. In view of this, the accused “do not feel that they are actually undergoing judicial proceedings and therefore do not take the experience with due seriousness,” the Labour MP said.

Another problem identified by Herrera was the lack of a waiting room, “with people waiting behind the door”. This, he lamented, created “utter confusion” as there was no order.

“Every lawyer that is there waiting has almost to fight at the beginning of the hearings so that he or she is not left out,” Herrera insisted.

Moreover, Herrera explained how the fact that the sittings were taking place in a location that was “rather distant” from the Law Courts’ building in Valletta was also creating inconvenience to all those who need legal assistance.

This arrangement, Herrera added, was also creating “inconvenience to the Magistrate who presides over the Court”.

It would be “much better” if these sittings were held at the Family Court building, where the sittings by the previous Juvenile Court magistrate held its sittings, Labour’s main spokesperson for Justice concluded.

The problems at the Juvenile Court had been highlighted by Labour deputy leader for party affairs Toni Abela in his weekly article in sister Maltese-language paper Illum last Sunday. “I had been asked to assist a 13-year-old boy in the building which supposedly hosts the Children’s Court, better known by lawyers as the Juvenile Court,” Abela explained.

“It was a hot day with the lawyers, the children and their parents waiting in a corridor as if they were pigs waiting for slaughter,” Abela said in his no-holds barred style. There is not enough space for everybody to sit down… I felt like I had entered a page of one of the books of Charles Dickens,” Abela lamented.

“Where they prosecute our children is good for everything but to present children in it,” he insisted. Abela agreed with the idea of holding Juvenile Court hearings in a separate place from the ordinary courts. “However to make sense, we have to manage the question with seriousness,” Abela insisted. “As the situation is now, it is purely a cosmetic piece because the manner in which the Juvenile Court is being run and the place where it is being held are doing much more harm than good.

“I could not understand why there had been all those people in the Hall when a child was accused of beating another child,” Abela lamented. “Not even when there is a US Senate hearing there are so many people.