The Malta Women’s Lobby insisted on Saturday that the authorities are not doing enough to ensure that victims of domestic violence are being given adequate protection and timely justice.

It said in a statement there is still a big backlog in court cases, with victims having to wait over a year until their aggressor is summoned to court.

With a backlog of 2,283 cases, the appointment of a second magistrate to deal with such cases is not enough.

And to make matters worse, the magistrate who was originally dealing with cases of domestic violence is no longer working on such cases.

This, the lobby said, suggested that the appointment of a second magistrate was "just lip service", and there was never any serious intention of rectifying the caseload situation.

"What’s the point of publishing nicely worded policies if their implementation remains questionable? In normal countries when governments issue a strategy of this importance, it normally starts from a well-defined budget to ensure that the plan can be executed effectively without financial constraints," the lobby said.

Policies do not count until progress can be tangibly seen to be taking place and someone is held accountable.

Regarding the recently proposed electronic tagging, the lobby said this was first mentioned 10 years ago.

"Let’s hope that we won’t have to wait for another 10 years for its implementation." 

It noted that t is the duty of the state to protect the victim and the onus should not be put on the victim to request the electronic tagging of the perpetrator.