Chief Justice Silvio Camilleri. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

Proposals that are designed to “strengthen” the Commission for the Administration of Justice would actually shatter it, according to a report issued by the Office of the Chief Justice.

The word “strengthen” was a misnomer and merely paid lip service to the mandate entrusted to the Justice Reform Commission, the Office said in a review of the commission’s second batch of proposals.

This reform commission, headed by retired human rights court judge Giovanni Bonello, will put forward its final recommendations on a holistic reform of the justice system by the end of the year.

Its second report dealt mainly with institutional reform, civil and criminal procedure and administrative measures.

To ensure more accountability for the judiciary, it proposed creating performance benchmarks for every member, set by the Chief Justice and made known to a revamped Commission for the Administration of Justice.

This, however, would be known as the Commission for the Supervision of the Judicial Service.

It would oversee the administrative processes and ascertain that targets were met.

It would receive reports on the performance of individual judges and magistrates and seek clarifications, referring these to another commission responsible for enforcing discipline if not satisfied with the explanation.

The review by the Office of the Chief Justice, representing the judiciary, is scathing on the subject of the Commission for the Administration of Justice, accusing the Bonello Commission of grave shortcomings in fulfilling the mandate given to it by the Government.

The judiciary reiterated its stand that the new structures proposed by the reform commission were unacceptable and did not provide the guarantees demanded by European standards.

Members of the judiciary must be more severe in those cases where lawyers come to court unprepared

If more resources needed to be found for the new structures, then they ought to be given to the Commission for the Administration of Justice, which currently lacked finances and staff, to enable it to fulfil the functions vested in it.

In its 46-page report review, the judiciary again complained it had not been consulted and said some of its warnings went com-pletely unheeded.

Regarding the backlog of cases, it said one of the reasons which the reform commission failed to highlight was the slowness in filling vacancies. Some of the proposals would either increase the backlog or shift it from one court to another. It said one of the priorities of the reform must be the strengthening of support services, with more staff, better resources and better trained judicial assistants. However, members of the judiciary must be stricter in those cases where lawyers come to court unprepared, thus delaying proceedings.

As for the proposal to relax the suit-and-tie policy for the summer months, this was just a “populist” measure.