Many are rightly outraged over the bail granted to Yorgen Fenech, the businessman charged with complicity in the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia. Yet the real outrage should be directed at the chronic delays in our justice system – delays that erode public trust, re-traumatise victims’ families, and allow those accused of major crimes to walk free before a trial date is announced.

Fenech was arrested in November 2019 and has spent five years awaiting trial. Despite a marathon compilation of evidence and dozens of sittings, mostly wasted on legal procedure, the case continues to drag on. As we in the media kept hearing that the trial by jury would “happen soon,” the judge simply had no legal justification to keep Fenech locked up.

Some say this particular case is very complex and, therefore, inevitably take a long time. So, let’s put this case aside and consider another: Lassana Cisse, the man killed because of the colour of his skin. The two soldiers charged with his killing were granted bail in 2019. More than five years later, their trial is nowhere in sight.

In 2018, Kevin Micallef was charged with killing his own mother and aunt in Għargħur. Seven years later, the case remains ongoing.

Here’s another: Chantelle Chetcuti was stabbed in 2020 while having a drink with friends. Last month, her family revealed that her alleged murderer – the subject of domestic violence reports by other women – was going on overseas holidays with the court’s permission, while they waited for justice.

Eliott Paul Busuttil attacked Emil Marinov with a butcher's knife, but survived the ordeal despite the facial scars. Busuttil got bail. His next victim wasn't lucky: he went on to kill Mario Farrugia. 

Dozens of other victims, mostly connected with domestic violence, live in fear of bumping into their aggressors.

This isn’t the failure of one court or one magistrate – it is a systemic breakdown fuelled by inertia. A 2020 Council of Europe report found that criminal court cases in Malta take between two and five times as long as the European average. 

Our judicial system is akin to a long, drawn-out TV drama where lawyers take centre stage while victims and their families play supporting acts.

Meanwhile, police investigations remain bogged down by clerical errors, redundant evidence, and prolonged adjournment over minor mistakes.

This isn’t the failure of one court or one magistrate – it is a systemic breakdown fuelled by inertia

The courts, understaffed and burdened by archaic procedures, grapple with efficiency. In Fenech’s case, we saw a very long, tedious reopening of compilation to gather new evidence, a never-ending analysis of the middleman’s tapes, a change in prosecutors, constitutional case offshoots, and experts departing their jobs before testifying.

The problem isn’t a lack of awareness. In November 2020, we reported that there were plans to remove the compilation of evidence stage from proceedings. By 2022, the plan was revised to limit it to one year. Now even that idea seems to have quietly disappeared.

Perhaps the answer lies in an uncomfortable reality: the legal profession – and most MPs are lawyers – has little incentive to fix this system.

Delays mean more hearings, more billable hours, and drawn-out cases that keep the justice machine churning at a profitable pace.

Instead of tackling the elephant in the room, the government now wants to reform the magisterial inquiry system, with Robert Abela decrying the ‘calvary’ faced by public officials caught in lengthy inquiries.

And yet, one of those subjects, Lands Authority CEO Robert Vella, had his case dismissed in just three weeks.

If three weeks is an unacceptable wait, what should we say to the families who have been waiting five, 10, or more years for justice? Why should suspects themselves wait for years on end until a court decides their fate?

The courts, police, the legal profession, the government share responsibility for this crisis. We need a justice system that prioritises timely trials over endless bureaucratic entanglements.

Without real reform, we are normalising a system where major crimes become just another episode in a never-ending legal saga. We keep repeating that justice delayed is justice denied. And Malta, it seems, has become far too comfortable with denial.