A pre-trial process used in Maltese criminal courts which can take years to conclude should be scrapped altogether, Repubblika believes.
The rule of law NGO on Monday presented a series of proposals to speed up Malta's slow court procedures.
Among them is a proposal to totally do away with the compilation of evidence stage, replacing it with clear rules of discovery that ensure the prosecution’s evidence is shared with the defence.
“The reforms proposed by the government are nowhere near enough for what needs to be done,” Aquilina said before going to hand the NGO’s consultation document to the justice ministry.
A government white paper published in April has proposed limiting the compilation of evidence stage to one year. Government figures show compilations for drug cases take an average of four and a half years to be concluded and those of other criminal cases stretch to an average of 10 years.
The compilation of evidence stage - the first step in criminal proceedings once a person is arraigned - requires prosecutors to present their evidence, to convince the court that the accused should be tried for the crime they are accused of.
The consultative document also proposes incentivising guilty people to admit to their crimes earlier on in the case, in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Repubblika believes the one-year compilation of evidence deadline being proposed is risky, as evidence that has not been presented within that year cannot be used in trial.
“There is no need to have a compilation of evidence stage at all,” Aquilina said. “This is a colonial tradition that the British themselves have gotten rid of,” he said.
Instead, there should be clear rules of discovery where the prosecution is bound to share all its evidence with the defence.
Testimony can be in writing or via video during this stage, he said.
Discovery - known in Britain's legal system as 'disclosure' - is a pre-trial legal process which allows lawyers from either side to obtain evidence through depositions, interrogations, requests for documents or other means.
Malta struggles with extremely slow judicial proceedings, with many cases – and magisterial inquiries – taking years and sometimes decades to conclude.
Aquilina said that the courts' current backlog for serious crimes is 10 years. The European Court of Human Rights advises that a criminal trial should take no longer than four or five years from a first interrogation to a sentence.
“The people arrested for Sion’s Grech, who were freed, were taken to court 18 years after (the murder),” the Repubblika president noted.
This goes against the defendant’s rights but also the rights of victims and family members, he said.
Repubblika’s 10 proposals for a better justice system are:
1. Government to stop interfering with the Advocate General (AG) to protect politicians and those buying out politicians
2. Clear separation between investigators and prosecutors and incentives for the AG to employ the country’s best lawyers
3. Better court training for police
4. Specialised magistrates: Separation between civil court magistrates and those in criminal court
5. Testimony to be heard outside court when possible
6. More resources for the court- new courtrooms, separate buildings for separate courts and more human resources
7. A judiciary police force that works for investigating magistrates
8. Magisterial independence that allows them to choose when to close an inquiry instead of closing when the police or AG open a judicial process
9. Modernisation of the judiciary process
10. Courtrooms and judges dedicated to juries.