Chief Justice calls for more human resources

The solution to the backlog of pending court cases lies in a "serious investment in human resources", Chief Justice Vincent DeGaetano said yesterday.

Speaking at the opening of the forensic year, the chief justice said there was a need for a solution that addressed the backlog in a direct and radical manner, as opposed to the peripheral solutions that had been proposed so far.

"In my opinion the solution, which is however expensive, is... a serious investment in human resources.

"It is useless to speak about a full complement of judges and magistrates when this is not measured in terms of efficiency and by efficiency I mean the time from when a case is filed until it is decided," he said.

Throughout the speech, Chief Justice DeGaetano emphasised the importance of an efficient and independent judicature.

He started by saying that this time last year the judiciary was worried about restoring the "normal" work rhythm which had been disrupted in the trauma that the judicature went through in August 2002 and added that through effort it had been restored and maintained.

Despite the two electoral campaigns and the time spent trying to fill in vacant posts within the judiciary, there had been progress last year.

The chief justice mentioned changes in the appeals court where the number of pending cases was slowly being reduced. For example, in the Court of Criminal Appeal in its inferior jurisdiction, the number of pending cases had been cut from 200, 160, 148 and 143 in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002, respectively, to 100 pending cases.

The increase in "disposal rate" was primarily possible because the two judges - the chief justice and Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono - who worked in the Court of Criminal Appeal, were handling a reasonable amount of cases at a time. This allowed for efficient case management. But, he added, this was not the case with regard to the workload in other courts.

The chief justice went on to explain that Malta's accession to the European Union will not only provide advantages but will also introduce new duties.

As from next year, he explained, the Maltese judiciary will come face to face with EU laws and although some judges and magistrates had completed a post-graduate course in EU law, most members of the judiciary are not familiar with it. For this reason it was essential that when Malta became an EU member, an appropriate infrastructure, providing members of the judiciary with competent and equipped staff and help, would be set up, he said.

Malta's accession to the EU would also mean competition from other member countries, even on the level of the administration of justice.

Chief Justice DeGaetano said this aspect was not being given the importance it deserved and explained that before an entrepreneur invests in a country one of the things he took into account was its efficiency in the administration of justice, especially in the commercial sector.

He emphasised the importance of efficiency and spoke about the allocation of judges in the Second Hall of the Civil Court and the Family Court that is expected to start operating soon.

Judges and magistrates were "overstretched" with work and the system lacked a back-up that would enable a judge or magistrate who was ill or indisposed to be replaced.

He also spoke about the post of judicial assistant, which was not attracting young qualified lawyers, and about the lack of court assistants in the Magistrates' Court.

The chief justice said there was a need for radical solutions to increase efficiency and suggested the use of leave to appeal forms that would be aimed at reducing frivolous and vexatious appeals, which the courts could no longer tolerate.

He also said that if the Malta Arbitrary Centre would be put to better use the pressure on the courts would be considerably reduced.

Chief Justice DeGaetano also spoke about the importance of an independent judicature. "[This] is not a privilege for the judiciary to benefit from - the independence of the judicature is the citizen's guarantee... that there would be justice especially when his or her right would be breached by one of the government's functions - the legislative and the executive".

However, he added, in reality the institutional framework was one in which the judicature was entirely dependent on the authorities.

The time had come for the Maltese judicature to become legally and institutionally detached from the government's executive, he said.

The president of the Chamber of Advocates, Robert Mangion, also spoke about the backlog of pending court cases but added that there existed the misconception that when a case was decided a problem was solved.

But he explained that not enough attention was given to ensure an efficient execution of the punishment, especially in the commercial sector when fines were to be paid.

He also spoke about the important function of the Family Court that would open a new chapter in the history of the law courts and about the structural changes carried out at the courts.

The fact that the Family Court would be in a separate building might create problems, especially for lawyers who had more than one case to attend to in one day, Dr Mangion said.