The Gozo law courts have failed an accessibility audit conducted by the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability which, however, stopped short of outrightly saying it was unfit for purpose.

In its inspection, ordered by Magistrate Joe Mifsud, the commission noted that the law courts were not only vertically inaccessible, with stairs being the only way to get from the groundfloor to the upper levels where the courtrooms are located, but also failed the horizontal test because the different floors had several levels.

The report, compiled by architect Joseph Spiteri and lawyer Bernard Busuttil, the commission’s director of investigations, compliance and enforcement, recommended the installation of a number of stair and wheelchair lifts to make the building somewhat more accessible.

Plans to relocate the law courts away from the inaccessible and crammed building in the heart of the Citadel, in Victoria, have been on the cards for more than a decade.

When Labour was elected to power in 2013, it had pledged to go ahead with plans made by the previous administration to construct a new law courts building in another part of Victoria.

However, various Gozo ministers have since taken over the plans but none of them brought it to fruition, except for a tender for the construction of the building’s parking area.

The Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability  made a series of recommendations which it hoped would deliver a “barrier-free court system” with a building that was fully accessible and that would not create any health hazard.

It said that the lack of physical accessibility to a court of law is only the most basic of barriers preventing a person from fully accessing the justice system “on an equal basis with others”, as laid out at law.

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

Moreover, in the eventuality of an emergency evacuation, the building compromised the health and safety of people inside, including staff and visitors.

Even getting to the building was difficult, with the steepness of the street posing a “challenging though not necessarily insurmountable barrier” to mobility impaired peopled.

To this end, it suggested a passenger lift access that would take people from Pjazza Katidral to the pathway running along the facade of the building.

It said there is a planning permit for this project, which has been pending for years.

“If implemented, [it] would provide a fully accessible route avoiding the steep Triq il-Fosos access to the building and would provide equal and independent access approach to the building,” the commission said, adding that the installation of a steps lift at the main entrance could potentially provide an accessible entry into the court building.

A steps lift is a mechanical device designed to function both as an ordinary staircase and as a wheelchair lift.

On the state of affairs inside the building, with each floor having different levels, the commission recommended the removal of wooden panelling along the corridors to make them wider and the installation of further stair lifts inside.

“A more radical and intrusive solution would be to survey all levels and consider raising or lowering various floors to achieve a barrier-free environment.

“Clearly, this solution would have a substantial disruptive impact on the operations carried out within the court building and would have to be the subject of an integrated construction and logistics planning exercise,” it said.

The commission also noted that even the courtrooms themselves are inaccessible, with the witness stand being on a higher level than the rest of the hall.

It found that none of the public or staff toilets are accessible, especially for wheelchair users and that the building also posed difficulties for the blind and visually impaired people.

It noted difficulties for those who are hard of hearing.

The commission also suggested in its report that new courtroom equipment ought to be compatible with special adaptive apparatus for hearing-impaired persons, such as FM or infrared transmitter technology or captioning.