Domestic violence victims are having to wait up to a year for their aggressor to be summoned to appear in court due to a “massive backlog” in cases that are being dealt with by a single magistrate.

Over the past months, cases of domestic violence have been assigned to Magistrate Lara Lanfranco.

The magistrate, described by many as “hardworking” and “exemplary”, has also inherited cases from another magistrate, over and above her own caseload. The workload is resulting in delays, sources have confirmed to Times of Malta.

Living for a year with your aggressor

Lawyer and Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi said that he was recently called to the police headquarters to assist a client who had been a victim of domestic violence.

Before he left, police officers told him the case would start in January 2023.

“I thought I had heard wrongly or that they were pulling my leg. They explained, with a look of regret that cases are taking a year to appear in court because there is only one magistrate assigned to such cases (who is a very serious magistrate).

“Imagine... a year living under the same roof as a person who assaulted you,” he wrote on Facebook.

Azzopardi said that the obvious thing to do would be to assign more magistrates to handle such cases.

Marceline Naudi, senior lecturer at the University of Malta’s Faculty for Social Well-being, said that one of the biggest issues faced by women experiencing domestic violence remained court delays.

She said too much time was passing between the day a woman plucks up the courage to file a police report, the time when the perpetrator was charged in court and then the duration of the court case. As the process dragged on for years these women remained vulnerable as the perpetrator was out and about and, in some cases, the violence continues, she said.

According to statistics tabled in parliament, there were 1,151 cases of domestic violence reported to the police between January and the end of August last year, a sharp rise on previous years.

Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis has revealed in parliament that between 2017 and 2020 some 989 cases of domestic violence were reported. However, only 42 cases resulted in a guilty verdict, with the majority (around 802 cases) listed as having been “exhausted”.

A case can be exhausted for various reasons, including victims who refuse to testify against their alleged abuser or those who withdraw their initial criminal complaint.