Judiciary reinforcing its independence

A website is to be launched in the coming weeks providing the public with an independent and clear picture of the judiciary and its functions, Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano said yesterday.

This was one of a series of measures, he said, that would highlight the independence of the judiciary from the executive, since the content of the site would no longer be part of the Justice Ministry's website.

Speaking during a ceremony marking the beginning of the Forensic Year, Mr Justice De Gaetano noted that there were two main priorities concerning the judiciary that needed to be addressed.

The first revolved around better efficiency in the administration of justice so that cases were concluded faster.

The second was to ensure there was constitutional independence as well as institutional independence between the judiciary and the executive.

Focusing on the first priority, he said that in the past years there had been a drop in the backlog of cases.

While there were some exceptions, the mentality was changing so that cases were being appointed by time and managed more efficiently.

Statistics showed that, in the past year, 976 cases were decided by the Magistrates' Court as a court of criminal judicature.

These did not include the hundreds of applications decided and other cases that fell under the district of specialised sittings such as health and administrative law enforcement (ALE) sittings.

The Chief Justice also noted that, ever since the time within which the Attorney General's right to appeal had been extended, the number of appeals had more than doubled so that three judges were hearing appeal cases.

Besides, since the Attorney General had reorganised his cases, the number of bills of indictment had rocketed to about 60, when, at the moment, only one judge was dealing with trials on a regular basis.

Mr Justice De Gaetano also mentioned the unacceptable length of time it took some compilations of evidence to be heard, adding he was convinced the problem lay in the "attitude" adopted and a lack of coordination between parties.

He also spoke about the drug sittings, heard by the drug court, adding the problem there lay in the fact that some defendants were being summoned to court months or years after being investigated.

Apart for causing a congestion of cases, there was a sense of injustice towards defendants who may have changed their ways by the time their case was heard in court.

Speaking about the independence of the judiciary he referred to recent amendments that highlight this. These include one concerning the abstaining of judges or the assigning of duties that now stated there was no longer the need for the intervention of the President of Malta as such matters were now solely regulated by the members of the judiciary.

Through the amendments, the Judicial Studies Committee was also officially recognised for the first time in the Code of Organisational and Civil Procedure.

Upcoming amendments were to address judicial assistants and give the Chief Justice the authority to revoke the Director General's decisions if he felt they interfered with the work of the judiciary. Apart from this, he said, earlier on this year, the draft consolidating court regulations had been finalised.

Earlier this year, a committee met to evaluate the possibility of housing a childcare centre in a building close to the law courts, he said.

This would be set up for court staff, judiciary, lawyers and legal procurators who had children.

Speaking during the ceremony, the president of the Chamber of Advocates, Andrew Borg Cardona, said he expected respect among each of the four branches of the state - the judiciary, the executive, the legislature and the media - and that this respect be extended to lawyers.

Over the past year, he had seen that some components from each of these branches of democracy had shown a negative attitude towards lawyers and the chamber felt the need to take action.

Speaking about the executive, he was worried that not enough effort was being made to solve existing problems.

As regards Parliament, the legislative branch, he referred to negative comments passed about lawyers.

Parliament, he noted, was equally important as the other branches and lawyers formed part of them.

The physical and administrative structure in court needed improvement and it was about time that the opening hours of the court registry were extended and childcare facilities introduced for employees with children.

The time had come to review the remuneration in terms of redeemable expenses as the current fees were "antiquated", Dr Borg Cardona said.