The women's lobby said on Saturday that the inquiry report into the femicide of Bernice Cassar confirmed that domestic violence was not a priority for the government.

Last November, the mother-of-two was shot dead on her way to work.

She had filed multiple police reports against her ex-husband Roderick. Days before she was killed, her lawyer, Marita Pace Dimech, pleaded with police to take action against him for breaching a protection order. 

Following her murder, the government appointed the inquiry to examine whether authorities were or should have been aware that Cassar’s life was in danger and if there were any failings in implementing domestic violence law.

The inquiry concluded that the state 'system' failed her, particularly because of a lack of resources and a heavy caseload.

However, people who work in the domestic violence field said the government-appointed inquiry “tells us nothing new”. It only highlights the urgent need to take action on recommendations made repeatedly over the years.

"We’re up to our eyeballs with slick press conferences, fronted by politicians pledging to fix the system they themselves control. We demand action," the Malta Women's Lobby said on Saturday. 

"If the 'state' was serious in giving victims of domestic violence the support  they need, then they would have implemented what they were promising over many years."

The lobby insisted it was the responsibility of the state to ensure that adequate resources were made available for victims of domestic violence.

The state ‘system’, the lobby said, was not an abstract construct: it was a system run by individuals elected to serve.

"The lobby reiterates its stand that minimising responsibility and shifting the collective blame on 'the system' is tantamount to manipulation, with the objective of giving false assurances that someone, somewhere is shouldering responsibility.

"Ultimately, it is those individuals who failed to provide the much-needed resources who are responsible for the injustice faced by Bernice Cassar and her loved ones. It is all well and good for Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri and Justice Minister Jonathan Attard to repeat the usual clichés, that 'we must do better, promising to implement the right reforms and increase resources."

2018 plans never materialised

The lobby complained that a proposal to strengthen the DASH assessment through the involvement of a multidisciplinary team Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Meeting – MARAM) was already in the pipeline in 2018 but never materialised, despite tax money used on staff training.

"Ministers Camilleri and Attard also announced that new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) were also being drawn up.

"Might we remind both ministers that these SOPs have been in the making for over five years and were due to come out in 2017?  How many more victims need to die before the much-needed SOPs are put in place?  Why this gross negligence?"

The lobby meanwhile noted that while moving the Gender-Based and Domestic Violence Unit hub to Santa Luċija from the Floriana Depot and adding a unit in Msida was an "improvement", it did not solve the problem of women fleeing a dangerous situation and who were not mobile.

Police stations in localities need to be kept open to offer additional adequate support and protection to victims, at least, until they can access the specialised hub, the lobby recommended.

And Malta needs at least another such hub in the north while a separate one should be opened in Gozo.

While demanding the publication of the full inquiry report without delay, the lobby said it was already known that the domestic violence unit was understaffed and under-resourced, that there was a massive backlog of court cases and that entities like Aġenzija Appoġġ and the Domestic Violence Services needed better funding.

"We did not need another inquiry to tell us that Temporary Protection Orders needed to start being issued again, that there was a general communication breakdown between relevant entities and that the 'system' was broken."

"The unpublished inquiry report as well as the conclusions of this inquiry only confirm what the NGOs have been pointing out for years: that this issue, which largely affects women, and can mean life or death, is clearly not a priority for the government.

"Bernice Cassar did everything in her power, and more, to keep herself and her children safe. And yet, here we are again, lamenting that the “state system” failed her."