MLP motion on new court tariffs

The Opposition spokesman for justice, Anglu Farrugia, will table a motion rejecting the recently-introduced court tariff "adjustments" when Parliament resumes next month.

Dr Farrugia yesterday lambasted the government's decision to revise court fees as of the beginning of this month. By increasing the tariffs, which he said would hinder the citizens' free access to justice, the government had avoided parliamentary debate by introducing the increases through a legal notice. The government had done the same five years ago, he said.

Dr Farrugia said that in an action for dispossession, tariffs used to be cut by 50 per cent. The legal notice, however, had brought this practice to an end.

Another increase, from Lm2.50 to Lm10, involved charges for filing official letters and judicial protests. The cost to apply for a garnishee order on somebody leaving the country had gone up from Lm25 to Lm75 and from Lm15 to Lm20 in the case of any other garnishee order.

Before the new tariffs were introduced, car collision cases in which expenses amounted to under Lm1,500 could be heard by an arbiter at the small claims tribunal against a charge of Lm18. The government had now ruled that collision cases had to be referred to the arbitration centre, which meant that clients had to pay up to Lm200 for the case to be heard.

The increases had been disguised behind a number of "cosmetic" reductions which the legal notice introduced, the Labour spokesman said. For example, a photocopy no longer cost 25c but 15c, an affidavit costs Lm3 instead of Lm5 and a lawyer's notification had gone down from Lm3 to Lm1. Fees for notifying witnesses still cost Lm3.