Sunday, 12th October 2008

Court experts cost over €850,000

Minister plans review of court expenses

Herman Grech

Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici says it is high time for the justice system to slash at least half of its hefty expert expenses.

Figures obtained by The Sunday Times show that the court paid out €855,572 to different court experts in 2007 and €433,083 until July this year.

Architects account for 29 per cent of the 2007 costs, while lawyers account for another 21 per cent.

Over 35 different professions, from interpreters to private investigators, are engaged by the courts to assist with different court cases, but Dr Mifsud Bonnici believes there is much scope to trim the costs.

"The figures can be controlled - we are forking out money on expert advice we sometimes don't need," he said.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici, who has already underlined the need for a revision in the magisterial inquiries systems, said he would be carrying out a restructure of expert witness costs.

The minister said he hoped to have a new system of commissioning experts in place by the end of this year, which can be fine tuned further in the following years.

"The expenses are mounting and we need more control," said the minister, as he emphasised the need to have all parties on board in any restructure to ensure the criminal court processes are not delayed in any way.

Does the minister fear abuse in the current methods of appointing court expert witnesses?

"I wouldn't call it abuse, but we're not realising the consequences. For example, if someone is accused of fraud in financial regulations - it doesn't necessarily have to be a lawyer or an accountant who carries out the financial research into a case, it could be a court official."

The minister's comments echo the views of Chief Justice Vincent DeGaetano, who in a recent interview with The Sunday Times criticised the amount of money being pumped into the appointment of experts.

The Chief Justice had said that experts should be given clear terms of reference.

"If you have a break-in into a factory for example, what's the point of appointing an expert to assess the value of the entire contents of the factory?" he had said.

Previous article • Grandparents remain best childcare option for Maltese
Next article • Man charged with importing cocaine capsules in stomach

Article © Allied Newspapers Ltd., printed on Monday, November 23, 2009. This article is for personal use only, and should not be distributed.

Comments

Charles Micallef (on 13/10/08)

Add to the list of all those who are on the gravy train................

philip pace (on 12/10/08)

Welcome to the circus,
If the court experts cost over €850,000 then perhaps the Government of whom the Minister serves can enlighten us on how much did the foreign experts cost us in these last 20 odd years bearing in mind that the court experts did something positive while the foreign ones just came for a holiday, stated something, wrote a report on things that never saw the light of the day?
A case in point was the Danish 'wizard of oz' who came up with the silly idea of BRAND MALTA during the disasterous years of our country tourism section!
So why now not before?

Expert bananas

M.Grech (on 12/10/08)

Can the Minister also say how much money is recovered when a case is decided and an accused has to pay all the court expert expenses after the report has been taxed accordingly? And what about the cost of foreign experts when they are requested to carry out specialised work or to agree/disagree with the findings of the local experts? Will the Minister ask these foreign experts to cut on their expenses like he's intending to do with the local ones? Aren't these foreign costs not a burden on the expense system? I'm sure local experts are capable of doing a great job just as much as the foreign ones! The Government recovers 18% VAT plus 35% TAX. May I also ask if police department experts' (forensic, etc) expenses are included?

Noel Cutajar (on 12/10/08)

@Paul Barett - the system that you are writing about is the UK system. It has also its flaws in that the police would want to press charges while the CPS disagrees. There was an attempt to have such a prosecution unit within the police, whereby 14 individuals were trained to become lawyers or legal procurators. Only 4 remain the rest have left for one reason or another. In my case I left because I was doing other tasks and nothing related to my 6 years of study. The AG on the other hand has quite a similar function of the CPS and secondly although the Police appear in Court, the AG still has control on what goes on in the case. It has the right to ask for more witnesses or certain evidence to be exhibited. But prior to the case ending up in Court there is a limited involvement in the course of the investigations by the AG.

Noel Cutajar (on 12/10/08)

The figures do not give justice to what happends in Court. If we consider two aspects: Forensic and Post-mortem. They are two essential features in any criminal proceedings. Both features are carried out in government institutions and therefore any expenses are placed back into the coffer of the government. Most forensic experts are police officers and so part of the expenses return to the government. If an ex parte individual is appointed has to be paid. Apart from that judgements also take into consideration that anyone found guilty must pay the expenses.

As regards Carmelo Briffa, one has to see the judgement and secondly you can always check with the court whether you had to pay the architect or not.

Paul Barrett (on 12/10/08)

The Courts/Magistrates should not be carrying out inquiries, their job should be to hear a properly prepared case at trial.
The Police should carry out investigations, take written statements and produce the written evidence to a Central Prosecution Service (CPS).
The CPS should assess the written evidence and confirm the charges which the evidence clearly confirms - it it does not, the case should be returned to the Police with advice to obtain further evidence or for the case to be dropped.
Expert evidence if essential to support the case should be procured by the CPS.
Prosecutions in Court should be by a member of the CPS - not a Policeman.
The Magistrate should hear the case and either dismiss it or if within their power, deal with it or hand it on to a higher Court.

carmelo briffa (on 12/10/08)

Could anyone explain why this is described as court expense? When the court appointed an architect in my case at the end of the case the architect sent me a bill. Does it mean that the architect gets paid twice, by the court and the client?.

I Abela (on 12/10/08)

While I agree that certain expenses need to be controlled, I believe that just by looking at the figures and make an accountancy exercise is not the solution. Let's all hope that this plan will not block some court proceedings because of lack of funds, like it happened for the shared ownership scheme, and the appliances rebates.

Court experts cost over €850,000

Minister plans review of court expenses

Comments

Poll

Fun Stuff

	15 °C
Mostly Clear Feels like: 14.9°C UV Index: 3