In the first six months of this year there were 121 persons, out of 471, whom the Magistrates’ Criminal Courts freed from arrest on the day of arraignment.
The respective numbers in the Gozo court were nine out of 25.
Answering a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Franco Debono, Justice Min-ister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici pointed out that a number of such persons freed from arrest on arraignment would have admitted the charges and been sentenced immediately.
The Attorney General had asked for a revision of the courts’ decree in 26 of the cases of freedom from arrest, 23 of which had been accepted by the courts.