It is common knowledge that court cases drag on for ever but this was confirmed by an EU justice scoreboard that put Malta on the bottom rungs.

The worrying results strengthen our resolve to adopt effective reforms

The scoreboard drawn up by the European Commission last week also showed that despite having a high rate of lawyers for its population size, the judicial system was not performing well and needed improvement.

Expenditure on the judicial system was below the EU average, but a glaring issue was the lack of evaluation information on a number of processes analysed by the Commission. In most areas, information about Malta was unavailable.

Reacting to the dismal findings, the Government yesterday resolved to address the problems in the sector. “In the justice sector we do not have the luxury of asking whether we should change or remain the same. The country has no choice but to undertake reforms and change for the better.”

In a statement, the Government insisted that coming last in terms of how long court cases took to be settled was a hindrance to economic growth.

It noted that the appointment of a commission headed by former European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello was intended to come up with a holistic revision of the judicial system.

“The worrying results achieved by our country in various crucial sectors analysed by the EU justice scoreboard strengthen our resolve to adopt effective reforms that have to be delivered on time,” the statement said.

The Government added that democracy, the people and businesses “urgently required a better and more efficient justice system”.

It also expressed concern at the lack of evaluation tools to analyse the performance of the law courts and ancillary services.