The Gozo courthouse will be fined for failing to meet minimum health and safety standards and could face criminal action if it does not pay up.

The management had been given three months to bring the building up to scratch after the Occupational Health and Safety Authority found multiple shortcomings in an audit.

However, three months later, the OHSA has found that only five of the 16 requirements it laid down have been fully or partly implemented, a Gozo court heard on Thursday.

The audit had been ordered by Magistrate Joe Mifsud after a violent incident took place outside the court rooms. When the magistrate asked for video footage of the incident, he was informed there was no CCTV.

In its report presented to the magistrate on Thursday, the OHSA said it was evident there were “breaches of various provisions of law which fall under occupational health and safety legislation”.

“If it [the Gozo court] ever fulfilled its purpose in the past, it surely does not meet the minimum requirements which prevail today” under the law.

The Gozo courthouse will now have to settle an administrative fine and unless it pays up within the period laid down by law “criminal action will be instituted”, the authority wrote in its report.

It is not known how big the fine will be as it has not yet been established, however, a source said it was likely to run into thousands of euros.

It surely does not meet the minimum requirements

In its first inspection, the OHSA identified 16 actions that would bring the courthouse in line with health and safety regulations. It ordered Gozo courts director general Mary Debono Borg to comply within three months.

When OHSA inspectors turned up for their follow-up inspection, Debono Borg insisted on having her legal representative present since she was being interviewed “under caution”.

Courthouse failings

The inspection was carried out two days later and OHSA officials found that only five of the 16 actions had been implemented in full or in part.

CCTV cameras and fire extinguishers had been installed around the building, proper desk chairs were provided to employees, a first aid kit was made available and personnel were trained in first aid.

However, the OHSA found that the courts still had no designated health and safety representative, no designated employees responsible for fire-fighting and evacuation, no fire detectors, alarm systems, emergency routes or exits and no fire drills were being conducted on a regular basis.

Furthermore, no maintenance had been carried out on the flaking walls, there was still no proper ventilation, the humidity levels had not been addressed and workstations not upgraded.

The Gozo law courts, situated in a crammed old building in the heart of the Citadel, in Victoria, have already been faulted on other counts by the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability, in another audit ordered by Magistrate Mifsud in the same case.

The commission concluded that the courts were not only vertically inaccessible, with stairs being the only way to get from the ground floor to the upper levels where the courtrooms are located, but also failed the horizontal test because the different floors have several levels.

The commission made a series of recommendations which it hoped would deliver a “barrier-free court system” in a building that would be fully accessible and would not create any health hazard.

Plans to relocate the law courts have been on the cards for more than a decade.

When Labour was elected to power in 2013, it had pledged to move forward with plans, drawn up by the previous administration, to construct a new building in another part of Victoria.

However, a line of Gozo ministers have never brought those plans to fruition.