The Nationalist Party is calling for the resignation of Justice Minister Jonathan Attard over a "critical" court workload and lack of resources to address the issue.
PN MP Karol Aquilina told the media on Friday that magistrates were currently facing 1,902 pending inquiries, with one magistrate having 274 on their docket.
Aquilina also said that up until the end of October, there were 2,895 compilations of evidence still open in court, with one magistrate presiding over 346 by himself. Another magistrate has 4,045 open cases or procedures waiting to be addressed.
Aquilina highlighted a disparity in the workload being assigned to the two magistrates who handle domestic violence cases. Of the 2,283 pending domestic violence cases, one magistrate was overseeing 2,266 cases, while the other had only been assigned 17 cases, he said.
He added that individual magistrates were being burdened with a workload that they could not possibly hope to accomplish “well and efficiently” by themselves. One such magistrates in the family court has 714 pending cases, while the entire family court has 1,248 pending cases.
The court of appeal meanwhile has 486 cases that have not yet received a date of when they are set to be heard.
Aquilina said that the most critical issues currently faced by the court system were low wages and poor working conditions that are causing employees to leave and discouraging new ones from joining. He also claimed that limited space in the court building was causing overcrowding.
He also suggested that Issues that do not need to necessarily go to court should be diverted to the appropriate boards and tribunals, to help alleviate part of the burden being shouldered by the courts.
The most pressing issue remains the lack of political will to change any of these problems, despite members of the judiciary themselves highlighting them to Attard.
“Instead of grabbing the bull by the horns and tackling the issues, the minister is occupied with things that won’t fix these problems and will only delay them being addressed,” he said.
“This is why we are calling for Jonathan Attard to resign because he has been in office for two years and instead of getting better, things have gotten worse.”