Court reform process to continue

The government will continue the process to reform the administration of justice in order to bring about quicker conclusion of court cases and remove mediocrity from certain sectors of the law courts, Parliamentary Secretary Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici told Parliament yesterday. And, he added, if this door did not open, the people expected the government to open other doors for quick dispute resolution in the way it had already done through changes in mediation and arbitration services and the introduction of executive titles for debt recovery.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici was speaking during the debate on an Opposition motion to annul parts of a legal notice issued last month which raised a number of court tariffs.

The motion was moved by Anglu Farrugia, Opposition spokesman for justice, who said the tariffs revision was made without consultation with anyone. Although some tariffs had been reduced, this was only cosmetic and in most cases the tariffs still remained prohibitively high. The current structure was causing "catastrophic harm" to the law courts and as a result the number of cases before magistrates and judges was falling considerably.

Dr Farrugia said the government had been adjusting court tariffs for five years, to the extent that some fees had risen by as much as 1,000 per cent. The opposition had long resisted these changes and called for meaningful consultation with all interested parties, not least because access to the courts was being reduced to many ordinary people.

The situation was being made worse by changes the government was making to the judicial system, including the way how cases were being moved from the courts to tribunals and the way how some appointments were being made to certain tribunals.

Dr Farrugia said that the number of new civil cases, to which the tariffs applied, totalled 7,300 in the year 2000. Then, as the tariffs rose, the number of new cases started to decline sharply, with a drop of 2,000 in 2001. There was a further drop of 1,400 cases in the following year.

Thus, while the government was claiming it was improving the clearance rate of court cases thanks to higher efficiency, the people were increasingly reluctant to go to court because of costs.

In announcing the latest tariffs revision, the government had implied that the costs were being brought down. But inspection showed that the cost for an official letter rose from Lm2.50 to Lm10. Then the fee for a photocopy had been reduced from 25c to 15c! An affidavit used to cost 50c under the Labour government before that fee was raised to Lm5 by this government. It had now been reduced to Lm3.

It was true that costs for the issue of warrants had been reduced to a still high Lm25 from Lm75. But it had been this government which had set the Lm75 fee in the first place. The fee under a Labour government was just Lm5.

Dr Farrugia insisted that the government should act to eliminate the hardship being faced by people who had to go to court. The tariffs which had been raised should be brought back at least to what they were before.

Dr Farrugia said the system of "forced arbitration" which the government had recently introduced for collision cases actually meant higher costs to the people than when such cases were heard before the Magistrates' Court and the Small Claims Tribunal.

His view was that these changes had been made so that some Nationalist lawyers would earn many thousands of liri through their services before the new tribunals.

Parliamentary Secretary Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said that the opposition was, in a nutshell, telling the government that it should not carry on with reforms and to leave everything unchanged. But the government was not prepared to leave some sectors of the law courts in the mediocrity they were in.

In its reform process the government was introducing new, faster methods of conflict resolution including the Arbitration Centre, where cases were decided in two months, and the official letters for debt recovery. When cases followed these procedures, the parties knew when the proceedings would be concluded. In the law courts, cases were still taking too long to be decided and the people wanted new solutions.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said that five years after the court tariffs were revised, the government this summer had changed certain fees on the basis of experience. The changes were made in the summer not because Parliament was in recess, but because court activity slowed during that month.

Dr Farrugia had claimed that reductions announced in the latest revisions were cosmetic. Yet the tariff for the correction of certificates, such as to change a name from Anthony to Tonio in an act of birth, had been reduced from Lm100 to Lm10.

Possessory actions had been reduced to the same level as spoiliation cases.

In cases on the enforcement of promise of sale agreements, the tariff was reduced to Lm75 from Lm300.

There were also reductions in fees for joctitation suits and replies to appeals, among others. Contrary to what Dr Farrugia had said, in most cases the fees for official letters had been reduced.

Also contrary to what Dr Farrugia had said, the number of cases rose by 20 per cent before the First Hall of the Civil Court over the past year. The government's concern was how long it would take for these cases to be decided. But the opposition did not want to change anything. It was not concerned that people were wasting their vacation leave going to court.

The new methods being introduced by the government, such as the official letter for executive title for the settlement of a bill of exchange, meant a cost of just Lm10 instead of the Lm318 which a court case would cost. And there was no telling when the court case would be decided.

It was not true, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said, that the number of new cases before the law courts had fallen, but about half of such cases were now considered by the Small Claims Tribunal, and they were being decided in under three years. Still, the government was working for such cases to be decided within 18 months. The quicker a case was decided, the lower the costs.

There was nothing wrong that some minor cases now had to be referred to arbitration, in what Dr Farrugia said was "forced" arbitration. The new system was a better one, with faster settlement of disputes and the people only stood to benefit from it. In comparison, the courts involved much time wasting. Indeed, many people were regretting that their own cases could not be heard at the Arbitration Centre.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici denied that consultations on the reform process had not been made.

Concluding, he said the government was determined to continue the reform process because the people were desperate to see their cases decided as soon as possible. There was need for all to work together for this to be achieved. But in the meantime, the government would not depend on just one area.

If this door did not open, the people expected the government to open other doors for quick dispute resolution in the way it had already done through the changes to the mediation and arbitration services and the introduction of executive titles for debt recovery.