Court experts

I am replying to Peter Fenech's letter Court-Appointed Experts (September 29) to say that I find it truly incomprehensible that Dr Fenech has come out so strongly against his own colleagues with "some special training".

I find it even more incomprehensible that he has written so strongly against his own known friends.

He writes in his "personal capacity". I assume then that he acts in other capacities too, but judging from the tone and content of his letter, he has no knowledge of the system of court experts.

Let me then enlighten him that, firstly, lawyers appointed as court experts by a court of magistrates are not the only experts on the scene of the crime. A large part of the expense cited by the Parliamentary Secretary recently in this newspaper is also paid out to a number of other experts, including forensic doctors, pathologists, serologists, fingerprint experts, photography experts, analysts, architects, IT specialists, etc.

Contrary to the implications, there are no selected few and Dr Fenech is surely aware of this as a court practising lawyer. Why and how they are appointed is up to a magistrate's prerogative just as much as the administration has always had the prerogative to pick chairmen and other appointees who may perhaps have some special training after all (I myself need enlightenment here!).

Again, contrary to his implications, an individual lawyer's accumulated fees in one year can never run in tens of thousands of liri. To my knowledge, the Director of the Criminal Courts taxes a fee for each different job at a standard rate and only departs from the maximum where a higher fee would be fair in the particular circumstances. Perhaps Dr Fenech is unaware that once appointed to a particular inquiry, a court expert is required to work immediately round the clock, perhaps through the night, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve or any other holiday until his task is completed, regardless of professional, family or other personal commitments. May I also add that an expert most times performs under conditions such as unsanitary or dangerous places others will avoid. Yet experts' fees do not reflect this.

If experts' fees are considered high, perhaps one should consider that employees are due one and a half times their usual hourly rate for work after hours and twice their usual hourly rate for work on a Sunday and public holidays. Legal referees at the courts receive much larger fees with a Lm10 fee for each one hour sitting they hold. I have been informed that an arbiter at the Malta Centre for Arbitration is due a fixed fee of Lm55 and an additional fee of Lm12 for every hour or part thereof for sittings held and other related work. Why all the fuss about legal experts' fees when they come nothing near this?

The question of introducing a panel of a few selected experts will not reduce fees - the same number of inquiries must still be concluded. The two issues must not be confused. On the contrary I believe that a panel will only result in the system outlined in Dr Fenech's letter with particularly hand-picked lawyers receiving tens of thousands of liri and if no appropriate remuneration is offered the administration may find itself with no panel at all! It would therefore be wise to take a more holistic approach and review the entire system before modifying the present one.