Nearly 300 domestic violence cases are currently pending before the one magistrate assigned to handle them, according to figures compiled by the law courts.
The statistics support concerns that traumatised abuse survivors are waiting up to a year for their cases to reach court, leaving some feeling vulnerable to further violence.
Since July 2021, Magistrate Lara Lanfranco has decided 162 cases while 278 remain pending.
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 major delays.
Nationalist MP and lawyer Jason Azzopardi had raised the issue of the massive backlog earlier this month, when he said he had been called to the police headquarters to assist a client, a victim of domestic violence.
Before he left, police officers told him the case would start in January 2023.
Marceline Naudi, senior lecturer at the University of Malta’s Faculty for Social Well-being, said delays getting justice is one of the biggest challenges for domestic abuse survivors.
She said the delays are too long between the day a woman works up the courage to file a police report and the time when the perpetrator is charged in court. The duration of the court case is also lengthy, meaning the process drags on for years, while perpetrators may still resort to violence and harassment.
Last year, 1,231 people faced charges of domestic violence
Asked for a breakdown of the figures, a spokesperson for the Home Affairs Ministry said that the Court Services Agency had been collecting data on domestic violence cases since July 2021, when Magistrate Lanfranco was assigned to them.
Before that, domestic violence cases were treated as district cases and assigned to various magistrates.
“When domestic violence charges are filed at the law courts, the court will immediately set a date for these cases to be heard. In fact, weekly sittings are already scheduled in respect of domestic violent cases for the year 2022,” the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, a police spokesperson said that since the Domestic Violence unit was set up in October 2020, a total of 2,203 reports were received: 445 reports between October and December 2020, and 1,758 reports in 2021.
Following investigations, that included cases reported before the Domestic Violence unit was set up, 142 people were arraigned between October and December 2021. In 2021, a total of 1,231 people faced court proceedings for domestic violence.
Between October 2020 and December 2021, 40 people were found guilty, 165 were acquitted, while 92 cases were declared as “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.