4,000 SMS sent over deferred court cases

More than 4,100 SMS notifications were sent informing the public that court cases were postponed, Sunday newspaper Illum reports.

Introduced in October, the service was announced by the justice ministry as part of a series of measures aimed to increase efficiency and address excessive red tape in civil courts. Other measures included email notifications of witness statements, court referrals and writs.

Illum reports that more than 8,700 witness statements and more than 7,100 writs were sent to the respective lawyers via email since the end of October. Prior to this measure, lawyers had to verify these documents manually at the court registry.

The IT services are being offered at no additional cost to the government, since these are being carried out by its own IT agency, MITA.

Illum also reports that after 1st April 2014 - when the government announced that documents can be filed in any court registry - 132 documents were presented in Malta for cases being heard in Gozo, while another 66 acts were filed vice-versa.

Read more in today’s issue of Illum.