Arbitration Centre to hear traffic cases

Traffic cases involving a value of under Lm5,000 and no personal injury are to be trasferred from the Magistrates' court and the Small Claims Tribunal to the Arbitration Centre, in terms of a bill due to be moved in parliament shortly, Parliamentary Secretary Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici told parliament yesterday.

Cases on the carriage of goods by sea would also be heard by the Arbitration Centre without any limit on value.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici was speaking during the budget debate on the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs.

He said the purpose of such transfers was to give increased importance to the Arbitration Centre, cut the workload before the courts and the tribunal, and ensure that such cases were decided within six months, which was much faster than at present.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici also announced that the Family Court is due to be inaugurated on December 16.

He said the opposition first criticsed the government for not setting up the Family Court then criticised the government for the way it set it up. Some, it appeared, actually appeared not to want change.

The problem at present was that separation cases were not being given enough attention or took too long. Some cases had been pending for 10 to 15 years.

The key element of the Family Court would be mediation. The mediator would try to reconcile couples within two months. When and if it was clear that that was not possible, he would lead the spouses towards a fair separation contract. A lawyer would have to be nominated to protect the interests of children since, it had been found, children's interests were given the least importance in current proceedings, with the spouses more interested in their own affairs.

Where the spouses would already have agreed the separation conditions, they would also appear before the mediator, and once the mediator was satisfied that the agreed conditions were fair and according to law, he would give the necessary authorisation and, with the judge, ensure that the contract was published.

Executive warrants, such as warrants of prohibitory injunction or of seizure may be issued "at word go" and areas upon which the spouses agreed, such as maintenance, could be implemented immediately following a court decree, while the spouses were negotiating other conditions of their separation contracts.

The important thing was that proper value was placed on marriage. There was no denying that there were some in the legal profession who viewed separation proceedings as a means to make money and did not give importance to reconciling the spouses or achieving fair conditions of separation.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said he had no doubt that the opposition wanted the new court to achieve the same objectives as the government. Reports issued by a Labour government-appointed commission had set out objectives for the Family Court which were broadly similar to those of the present government, although the mediators were to have been judicial assistants and six months, rather than two, were to be allowed for mediation.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the mediator would not only be involved in disputes involving married couples, but also unwed couples who had children.

Clearly one could no longer have a situation where the second hall was sometimes akin to a Baghdad market and where there were so many cases that not enough attention could be given to each case. He could not understand how anyone could be so conservative as to be against such change.

Another problem that was being tackled involved couples who had separated and then their circumstances as regulated by their separation conditions changed. At present they had to file an application to the court. Now the governemnt was proposing that the couple would go before the mediators for a fresh arrangement to be reached.

Reacting to comments by Labour MP Anglu Farrugia, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the advantage of introducing the rules on the Family Court by legal notice was that changes could be made quickly if so required.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the government was continuing to work on an improvement to the administration of justice.

Recurrent and capital expenditure on the law courts had been raised. The court annex had been refurbished to house the Family Court and there had been substantial investment in information technology. That enabled better tracking of court cases. This facility showed, for example, that 40 per cent of cases had been awaiting judgment for more than five years. Successful introduction of a new fines collections system had been made.

Lawyers now also had the facility of receiving messages on cases put off through their mobile phones.

Staff was being recruited and given specialised training, as evidenced by the large number of courses given by the training academy.