The Attorney General and the Justice Minister have been called upon to come up with an effective solution to the current system where the records of a criminal inquiry travel back and forth between the court and the Attorney General’s office with a six-week period between each move.

The issue was the subject of an observation noted in the records of a case concerning Dennis Cremona, a 42-year old from Marsa who is currently facing a criminal inquiry over charges of having stolen cash from an Attard service station in July. The man was denied bail after pleading not guilty to the charges.

The man’s defence lawyer, Joseph Brincat, voiced his concern over the fact that since the file had not been sent back to court by the AG’s office, no progress could be registered during the day’s appointed sitting, in spite of the lapse of six weeks.

The lawyer pointed out that in today's sitting, the prosecution was to summon witnesses to testify over CCTV recordings which were to shed light upon the guilt or otherwise of his client, who meanwhile continued to be detained behind bars.

The current system of ‘renvoi’, particularly when the suspect was denied bail, “certainly ran counter to the pronouncement of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Mikalauskas vs Malta,” Dr Brincat continued.

In that case, the European Court had declared that pre-trial detention must be based on relevant and sufficient grounds and had called upon the relative authorities to display “special diligence” in the conduct of the proceedings.

In the light of such circumstances, the defence lawyer added that his client reserved the right to take ulterior action.

Magistrate Joseph Mifsud, presiding over the court, observed that the current system of ‘renvoi’ was creating an obstacle to an efficient system of justice since the six-week period was resulting in an unnecessary prolongation of court cases.

“The court believes that should the system be reformed, in the sense that the six-week period between one note of renvoi and another is removed, cases could be dealt with much faster, allowing proceedings, which under the current system could drag on for five years, to be decided within six months.”

The magistrate also expressed his concern over the fact that case files were being sent to court from the AG’s office either on the eve or even on the very day of the appointed sitting. Deploring such a lack of “effective management,” the magistrate observed that files should reach court at least one week before the next sitting, thus giving the prosecution sufficient time to summon its witnesses.

The court ordered that a copy of this note be delivered personally to Attorney General Peter Grech as well as to the Minister for Justice.