The situation at the law courts had worsened despite the Labour government promising a magic wand to solve all problems, PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami told Parliament yesterday.
He noted that Justice Minister Owen Bonnici had done a lot of work in presenting laws to make the justice system more efficient. But did these measures have the desired effect? Nothing had changed as people were still waiting for years on end for justice.
And yet, when they were in Opposition, PL stalwarts had launched a fierce attack against then Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici because of these very same problems.
Dr Fenech Adami found that in the district offices people were still not being notified about their sitting. There were over 600 civil cases at appeal stage, and some of them had been waiting for a year to be assigned a judge.
Justice was not served equally on everyone; some were treated with kid gloves and others had the full weight of the law falling on them like a ton of bricks.
Dr Fenech Adami noted that nothing had yet been done over the incident involving Magistrate Carol Peralta, who this time last year threw a party in his courtroom as if it were the most normal thing in the world, and then a journalist was arrested for taking a photo.
He described the case of Judge Lino Farrugia Sacco as another shameful case of someone who was admonished by the Commission of Justice for breaching the code of ethics. However, no action was taken by the government.
Justice is not served equally on everyone
Earlier, Opposition whip David Agius said the government had decided to cancel the local council elections of 2017 on the strength of a month of consultation in which only 40 people participated out of a population of more than 400,000. Of those, only 11 people agreed with holding local council elections at five-yearly intervals.
Mr Agius repeatedly said that the government manifestly did not believe in local councils and had done nothing to help them with their many needs. It was manifest that the government had decided to postpone the 2017 elections for political reasons, but local councils were the fourth pillar of democracy.
It was not even known yet when the 2015 elections would be held.
The government was not allocating any funds to administrative councils.
Francis Zammit Dimech asked what was being done by the government in terms of infrastructure when Malta had three important deadlines coming up: the CHOGM, the EU Presidency and Valletta 2018.
He said that the budget was remarkably dry on such details.
Dr Zammit Dimech warned that partisan politics should not be allowed to tarnish the culture sector.
Paula Mifsud Bonnici said the government seemed to be willing to send the Administrative Councils to oblivion by not voting any significant sums to these councils and ignoring them. She called for a direct and significant financial allocation to these councils.