Six criminal court cases put off

A magistrate had to put off six criminal court cases for next month, yesterday, because the Attorney General failed to send the case documents back to court in time for the sittings.

After listening to a series of court cases in a criminal sitting, Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera had no choice but to put off six of the cases since she did not have the case documents in hand.

"Today's sitting has been appointed in vain and the public now has to wait another month for the cases to be heard," the magistrate said as her words were put in writing in a note to be eventually inserted in the case documents.

In the written note (verbal) she said the case documents, with the date of the scheduled sitting, had been sent to the Attorney General on September 22 and the AG, therefore, knew about yesterday's sitting.

All the parties in the case had turned up for the sittings and waited for the cases to be heard but the court could not hear them without the documents.

This delay was surely not attributable to the court, she said.

In the note the magistrate also called on the AG to send the court documents back to court within a reasonable time and before the newly scheduled date and this so that the prosecution would be in a position to adhere to the requests of the AG (as listed in the case documents).

She put off the cases to November 24 and ordered that a copy of the note be sent to the Minister of Justice.