I am sure it took a strong doze of creative effort by the editor of this newspaper to manage to somewhat squeeze out a negative headline ‘Trust in the independence of judiciary at less than half’ (April 12) out of an otherwise positive, factual and correct report on the Justice Scoreboard (JS16) published by the European Commission.

While it is true that, as is the situation in most EU member states, a relative majority of the public perceives the judiciary to be independent, the Times of Malta fails to mention that Malta climbed three steps (from 40th to 37th place) in the World Economic Forum global ranking on the independence and impartiality of the judiciary.

This WEF ranking is a leading authority in this field to the extent that the Justice Scoreboard uses this ranking as a benchmark and makes it an integral part of its report. That is certainly good news for all those who have the justice sector at heart and hold no not-so-hidden agendas.

May I remind your readers that one of the most meaningful results that we achieved in JS16 relates to the notable reduction in the length of proceedings. In the previous scoreboards, Malta always ranked the highest in terms of the number of days it takes for the civil courts to resolve a case. The 28 per cent decrease in a single year in the length of proceedings of litigious and non-litigious civil, commercial and administrative cases saw Malta place itself before other European countries, as well as register the highest percentage decrease among all participating member states.

The scoreboard does not only look at the efficiency of the courts, but also at the quality of service being offered to both the customers of the service as well as to the people working within the system. Malta ranks among the foremost countries in the use of ICT, gender balance in the judiciary and in measures of quality standards.

We are indeed humbled with the results achieved by Malta in the JS16, and by the special mention that Madam Commissioner Vera Jurova made in respect of the improvement that Malta registered in terms of the length of proceedings.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.