Court cases taking less time to be decided

The average time it took a case to be decided in court was falling, with about half of the cases being decided within three years, Parliamentary Secretary Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici told parliament yesterday.

He said the backlog of court cases could not be solved through the appointment of more judges and magistrates, but by better court administration, more modern court procedures and the transfer of relatively minor cases to other bodies and alternative means of conflict resolution.

The introduction of the Small Claims Tribunal was one of the best things that could have happened. On average 2,000 cases were presented and 2,000 judgements delivered this year.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the number of pending cases which had been before the First Hall for over three years had fallen from 67 per cent of the total last year to 58 per cent.

There was a 10 per cent reduction in the number of pending cases, compared to a drop of 3.5 per cent last year.

In the magistrates courts, there were 1,600 pending cases as against 1,700 last year.

The situation of the Gozo courts was more disquietening: 76 per cent of the cases were older than three years. The government would seek to address this situation.

Pending cases in the appeals courts were decreasing: there were 290 in the inferior court, and less than 900 in the superior appeal court.

Pending cases in the criminal appeals courts were also showing decreases: indeed in August there were no pending cases, a credit to Mr Justice Joe Galea Debono.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the budget of the law courts was being increased by Lm50,000 to Lm3.7 million. Plans for next year included the rebuilding of one storey of the law courts building to house the administrative staff.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici expressed concern over the number of experts being nominated by the courts and wondered whether all were necessary. Some of their work could have been done by the police.

This year there were 4,000 nominations of experts, a considerable increase on last year. By August, Lm0.25 million were paid to these experts and there was a pending bill of Lm100,000. The cost of experts was nearly double that of last year.

Rerring to Dr Gulia's claim that a court expert had done his job but would not present his report because he had still not been paid, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said this was against the law. Indeed, this particular expert had aleady been paid over Lm6,000 for work done this year and another Lm3,000 were due.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said he was sure that many magistrates were not realising the extent of the situation.

Turning to the Family Court, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the court had found its feet and a number of problems which had cropped up were being sorted out. Unfortunately, matters had slowed down because of the indisposition of Mr Justice Ray Pace, who had been doing good work, in the past three months and he augured that Mr Justice would be able to return soon. One of the plans for this court was that the compilation of evidence in cases involving minors would be heard by one magistrate who would specialise in the subject.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici and Justice Minister Tonio Borg, who spoke after him, highlighted alternative dispute resolution measures which would further help reduce the cases backlog, including cases being referred to mediation and arbitration. These measures were also resulting in lower costs for the parties.

When he spoke on administration, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said there had also been an increase in the collection of fines from Lm243,000 last year to Lm435,000 this year.

Problems regarding the service of warrants and a new chief marshall was taking this issue very seriously.