Justice Minister Owen Bonnici yesterday introduced a myriad of amendments to streamline the course of justice by implementing EU provisions in the fight against organised crime, terrorism and cross-border crime.

The Bill also introduces amendments to a number of laws that will allow the prosecution to classify the gravity of certain offences and determine the court in which the accused is to be tried.

The accused will be given the opportunity to seek judicial review of such a classification while the court will have the power to apply a lesser scale of punishments notwithstanding such classification.

Introducing the 93-clause Bill, Dr Bonnici said he was aiming to eliminate the need to conduct criminal inquiries before a person was brought before the Court of Magistrates.

He hoped that by giving the right of disclosure to arrested persons, evidence would be collected during the arrest, thus eliminating the need for a criminal inquiry.

This measure would avoid situations where the police arraigned persons before the courts without having evidence against them.

The right of disclosure would help speed up court proceedings since it would make it more attractive to the accused to admit an offence in the early rather than later stages of proceedings.

Dr Bonnici thanked Police Commissioner Peter Paul Zammit who worked with the government to strengthen the rights of arrested persons.

Earlier, Dr Bonnici said that since being elected to government, Labour had started a process of judicial reform, introducing measures which mainly affected civil proceedings.

The government also made changes in the court buildings. Three customer-care employees assisted people in their queries while another X-ray machine was installed to avoid long queues. An inventory and a picture of every item stored in the strong rooms were introduced.

The government would make use of a building in Strait Street for offices for judges and magistrates, giving them more dignity and helping to create more space in the court buildings. This would also enable the government to increase the number of judges and magistrates.

The government had raised the penalty for abuse of minors and prostitution, he said.

It also helped to speed up court proceedings by making it possible for a person to admit an offence during the criminal inquiry. In the past, such person had to wait for the conclusion of the criminal inquiry to be sentenced.

Dr Bonnici said the Bill proposed important amendments because it tackled new definitions at law, the discretion of the AG and issues concerning the certificate of conduct, among other items.

The primary aim of the Bill was not only to alleviate delays but in doing so, making sure the criminal justice system was not stripped of its quality.

With reference to an amendment on the certificate of conduct, Dr Bonnici said that the C-type should be kept in order to be given to those who had never committed an offence. However, what was going to change was the duration a small offence would continue to feature on one’s certificate of conduct.

Furthermore, penalties of €200 or less should no longer continue to feature on certificates. This was creating a huge injustice, he said.

Another very important amendment was that tackling the discretion of the Attorney General, which had contested at the European Court of Human Rights and doubly found to be unconstitutional. He said that such instances mainly arose under the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance but the Attorney General also had a similar discretion under gaming laws.

With respect to drug offences, the Attorney General could either choose to send a person before a Court of Magistrates or to be tried by jury with much worse consequences. It was this option given to the Attorney General that was creating problems of a constitutional nature.

The new clause set out numerous objective tests which had to be underlined by the Attorney General before taking the decision, such as the amount of drug the accused was to be charged over and its purity.

Another test was whether a person had attempted to hide the drug.

The Bill was also proposing another ground for appeal under the competence of the Court of Magistrates, dealing with lack of notification. He said this clause would be enacted but would not be enforced immediately so that the system could adapt.

This measure would avoid situations where the police arraigned persons before the courts without having evidence against them

Dr Bonnici said the police should no longer be delivering court notifications; a private company should do this.

He was award of the workload of police inspectors who acted as prosecutors. That was why he would, in the near future, amend the policy so that the police force would have its own lawyers. They would do all the prosecuting while the police inspectors would only investigate crimes.

In order to tackle delays, email should also be made use of for notifications and district court of magistrate sittings should be split in two, those starting at 9am and those at 11am.

However, the judiciary should make it a point to start all of sittings punctually. Those who did not would be named in Parliament, he warned.

The need for harsher penalties for bullies and stalkers was often spoken of: this Bill defined stalking and established harsher penalties for those found guilty, entailing a fine of up to €10,000, one year imprisonment or both, Dr Bonnici said.

The laws against cyber bullying were being strengthened, as this led to serious social and psychological problems.

There were cases in which it even led to self-harm.

This was the reason the government would be coming down heavily on these people.

This was the second set of amendments in the judicial reform process. The minister promised a third, saying the changes were being made in a staggered manner to allow for a period of adjustment.

Dr Bonnici said it was also important to start debating constitutional amendments, which he hoped would lead to a stronger justice system. He also hoped to pilot amendments to civil procedures, with the ultimate aim of speeding things up.

He appealed for cooperation, declaring that even lengthy court procedures diminished Malta’s competitiveness.

Opposition spokesmen Beppe Fenech Adami and Tonio Fenech contributed to the debate.