The government needs to appoint at least three more judges to ease the backlog of pending court cases, according to the Commission for the Administration of Justice.

Presenting the commission's fourth report, covering the period October 2002 - September 2003, President Guido de Marco, chairman, said "temporary" and long-term solutions had been identified in the report to reduce the backlog of the thousands of pending cases.

"The delay in the administration of justice is a negation of justice. It is not right that many people who seek justice in court are burdened because they have to wait for years to get a judgment," he said.

Prof. De Marco said people were often turning to auxiliary methods, such as arbitration, not by choice but because they felt that the judiciary system was not working. "A sentence should not take more than two or three years to be handed down."

Last year the commission started asking judges to submit a report on cases that had been pending for more than five years. "If judges had to dedicate all their time to solving the cases that have been pending for more than five years, the number of pending cases would in fact increase. Therefore, other alternatives should be sought," Prof. de Marco said.

The report says that as a temporary solution, the commission thinks that an increase in the number of judges, and even magistrates for the Court of Gozo, is necessary "if the judiciary system is to address the problem of pending cases effectively".

The appointment of new judges would be temporary, in the sense that judges reaching retirement age would not be substituted unless their number is reduced further than the current number.

As for the long-term solutions, the commission says the lawcourt's infrastructure should be reformed to provide for more ex tempore sentences. Chief Justice Vincent de Gaetano, who was present at the press conference when the report was launched, explained that this is a practice whereby minor cases are heard, deliberated and decided upon by a magistrate there and then.

"This practice is present in other countries but lacking in Malta. The magistrate's or the judge's sentence would not take longer than two or three pages and the case is judged in a short time. Such a reform would indeed solve many problems of pending cases," he said.

The Chief Justice said judges have a tendency of writing sentences that are too long. This should change because it takes up a lot of precious time, he said.

Another suggestion is that the court should fine people who file a frivolous case or who submit a lost case to the Court of Appeal only to gain time.

It is also suggested in the report that competent people should be appointed to do the spadework for the judges and organise their work efficiently.

The commission noted that, independently of the ongoing national debate on pensions, there is an arbitrary discrepancy between the retirement age of magistrates and judges. The Constitution, in fact, lays down that judges should retire when they turn 65 while, in the case of magistrates, the pensionable age is 60.

"The retirement age should be increased in both cases because that age is often the peak of a magistrate's career," the Chief Justice said. He referred to the UK where judges retire at 75. Linked to this, observes the commission, is the pension that magistrates and judges receive when they retire. While the yearly wage of a judge is around Lm17,000, the pension is just Lm4,000. "Such a big difference could have repercussions on the life of a judge and his family."