The justice minister said on Monday that a level of accountability was needed in the way the members of the judiciary appointed court experts and how the experts went about their work.

Replying to a parliamentary question by Davina Sammut Hili (PL), Jonathan Attard said that over the past three years, spending on court experts was €26 million, which was no joke.

Court experts had an important role in the judicial process and no one was in any way precluding the members of the judiciary from appointing experts to assist them, he said.

But in line with efforts to improve efficiency in the administration of justice, there was a need to consider reforms and a level of accountability, such as by establishing timeframes within which experts' reports had to be submitted, and issues of value for money. 

Earlier this month the minister revealed in reply to another parliament question that the government is yet to pay some 569 court expert bills.

In total, there are 527 pending bills from the courts in Malta and 42 from the court in Gozo. 

Some 329 of the invoices have been pending for 30 days, 79 have been pending between 31 and 60 days and 49 have been pending between 61 and 90 days. 

The Court Services Agency subsequently denied that a backlog of court expert bills was causing delays in the justice system, noting that most of the pending bills had only remained so for 30 days.