The government is yet to pay some 569 court expert bills, raising concerns that strained resources will exacerbate delays.  

Justice Minister Jonathan Attard revealed the backlog, with almost a fifth of those invoices remaining unpaid for more than 91 days. 

In total, there are 527 pending bills from the Maltese court and 42 from the court in Gozo, he said in answer to a parliamentary question asked by PN MP Ivan Bartolo.

Some 329 of the bills have been pending for 30 days, 79 have been pending between 31 and 60 days and 49 have been pending between 61 and 90 days. 

Late last year, former PN MP and criminal lawyer Jason Azzopardi voiced concern that withholding payment from court experts is exacerbating court delays and claimed that the government is “killing or poking spokes in the wheel of magisterial inquiries.” 

Azzopardi claimed that in some cases bills for the services of court experts exceeded “hundreds of thousands of euros” and that as a consequence, certain experts are no longer presenting their reports to the court, causing inquiries to stall. 

“When is government interference in the work of magistrates going to stop?”Azzopardi questioned. 

He also questioned why court experts aren’t paid through the consolidated fund, the same way members of the judiciary are paid for their services, instead of having court experts having to “depend on the Minister” to get paid.