Unprecedented queues prompt calls for justice system overhaul

Queuing to enter the law courts in Valletta may not be an unheard-of experience, but the queues witnessed on Republic Street last week have prompted calls for a review of two specifics aspects of the justice system: security, and the allotment of cases.

Last Thursday at around 9am, passers-by were treated to the extraordinary sight of a queue stretching from the main entrance of the law-courts, on Great Siege Square, almost all the way to the corner with St John's Street. Subsequent rumours of an umpteenth bomb scare stretched further still... yet the official explanation supplied for this state of affairs by court officials on site was that the 'security measures' taken upon entry into Malta's only court of law had been changed.

Nonetheless there were no noticeable differences to the actual security procedures in place that day, or any other before or since. Upon entry, people were still asked to pass their personal effects through an X-Ray machine, and to walk through a metal detector, as was the case before the so-called administrative change.

Contacted by MaltaToday, Chamber of Advocates president Reuben Balzan admitted to being perplexed by the situation.

"I am unaware of any change to the security procedures. There is still just one metal detector to walk through, as there was before. Nor is it clear why there were so many cases allotted on that particular day. However, the situation does need to be addressed, as otherwise it will only create added delays..."

Balzan queried why there has been no effort to increase the security resources in place at the entrance to the building. "Perhaps it is time to consider installing more than one metal detector, and to use more than one entry and exit from the building."

Another problem identified as a cause for such delays is an apparent lack of communication, which results in too many cases being allocated to be heard on the same date. Many of these cases, Balzan explained, would be criminal cases in which the accused would have to appear for each sitting or face a possible penalty.

"This might explain why the number of people entering the building on one particular may be much higher than on others," Balzan added. "This issue could be addressed by a review of the system whereby such cases are allotted in the first place."

In all such considerations, a general lack of human resources remains the single most frequently-cited cause. On the occasion of the opening of the forensic year on 1 October, Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri alluded to this problem as part of the reason for excessive court delays:

"There are currently no fewer than 29 vacant secretary posts which mean that no fewer than 13 members of the judiciary do not have the necessary support to operate efficiently," Camilleri said.