A year has passed since the present Minister of Justice inaugurated the Family Court building in Strait Street, Valletta, on 16 December 2003. The plastic plaque commemorating the inauguration of the Family Court building was prophetic because a building was opened, but the Family Court is still a long way off from being inaugurated!

This must not be interpreted as an insult to the many, well-intentioned individuals who have been working hard for many years, not merely since we have had a change in name (what’s in a name?). This article is meant to underline the numerous necessities that still have to be met regarding the infrastructure.

The first major fault seems to be that neither the Minister for Justice, nor his Parliamentary Secretary (both of them good, honourable friends of mine), appear to really care whether the Family Court functions or not: they give me the impression that they belong to that group of individuals in this country which considers people involved in matrimonial conflicts or in personal disputes relating to intimate matters as something of anathema in our society, and are not given the attention they deserve, which results in so much suffering!

I hope I am wrong in this assessment of these two, very honourable friends of mine: but then how can they explain that following unfortunate accidents, Mr Justice Raymond C. Pace, all activities connected with various pending cases before the contentious Civil Court: Family Section have come to a halt? Could not they have intervened (if they truly cared), and issued statements assuring the individuals involved (who make up, proportionately speaking, a considerable number), and at the same time allaying their anxieties that their Court Procedures will not be affected in their private quest for a solution to the chaos of their private lives, a quest that may lead to a more stable and perhaps happier life for the individuals involved?

It is thanks to Mr Justice Pace that, while he could have very easily decided not to attend court at all during his period of recovery, it is to his credit that he did attend court on more occasions than perhaps he should have, and delivered in this delicate period of convalescence for him more than 100 judgments!

The Minister for Justice and his Parliamentary Secretary failed to comfort those involved in such lawsuits that their interests were being seen to, not only through never-ending mediation efforts, but how the lives of these individuals will be restructured following the breakdown of their marriages or the breakdown of intimate relationships with a partner, especially where the interests of minors are involved.

The conciliatory phase of these procedures (which before 16 December 2003 used to be known as the Second Hall of the Civil Court), are, for five months only (in the words of our Chief Justice), in the able hands of Mr Justice Valenzia who did his very best, considering that he had to handle other lawsuits in the Civil and Commercial Court, which have nothing to do with the Family Court!

Mr Justice Valenzia did his best in the circumstances. His hands were tied as numerous applications that were filed, and keep being filed at a very alarming rate, are pending lawsuits. It may not be fair for any decision to be given considering that the merits of such lawsuits are before the same court but being presided over by a different judge. Where were the Minister for Justice and the Parliamentary Secretary to explain the situation to the people in words they could understand?

In these delicate family matters, echoing unfortunately the words of the Parliamentary Secretary for Justice, the experiment seems to have been that we move on by trial and error, but at the expense of the ‘victims’ involved!

The infrastructure of the Family Court building leaves much to be desired: the public lifts were and still are not working, and another lift which is now also being used by the general public is proving useful, but it is no excuse. The designated public lifts have been inoperative (as they still are at the time of dictating this article), for many months now!

Whatever the Minister of Justice’s PRO might write, facilities in the Family Court toilets lack a basic asset: toilet paper and tissues where one can dry one’s hands. We had almost reached the ridiculous levels of not having enough chairs for people in the Court Halls and Court Rooms. Take the Criminal Family Court for instance where, apart from the fact that the Hall is small with a low ceiling, the intimate objective as to why such a Family Criminal Court was set up is not there: thank God we had an excellent appointment in the person of Magistrate Dr Anthony Vella who makes great effort to put the people involved in such lawsuits at ease, considering the stress they may be experiencing, the waiting in a restricted corridor and on the steps immediately outside this court room.

Mediators have devoted a lot of effort to cope with and overcome the numerous difficulties: they have inadequately furnished rooms, and some do not even have a telephone at their disposal to be able to communicate with the Family Court Registry. So we have the ridiculous situation that when the Family Court Registry needs to get in touch with some of the mediators, mobile phones have to be used thereby incurring unnecessary expense when the installing of a fixed line is more practical and certainly much cheaper.

The Family Court Registry is another extremely crammed area where the staff delivers its very best, but under conditions that certainly to not tally with the infrastructural needs of running a Family Court Registry where the various sections of running the Family Court are all centred.

Mediation sessions are taking much longer than planned and are being appointed much later than the prescribed legal time. The reason for this is that the few mediators are overloaded with work and no incentive or initiatives have been given to them to give a better service than what they are currently giving. It is one thing to speak about a dream but very different to put into practice. That is why the Minister for Justice and the Parliamentary Secretary for Justice have to actually take more of an active role in the daily running of the Family Court, which cannot be stated to have been a success at all since its inauguration on 16 December 2003.

At the end of the day the people involved do not care what the Minister of Justice believes or what the Parliamentary Secretary for Justice says, or what the party in government wants to do: what they want is a solution to their personal matters so that they can get on with their lives without all this procrastination that goes on and on, with the inevitable stress and piques that arise between the affected persons, which do no-one no good!

Agenzija Appogg is over-loaded with requests for reports to be made relating to the interests of minor children. We have had a number of reports where the conclusions show that not enough time was given to study a case with very often one of the parents ending-up as a victim. This is not blaming anyone, but it blames the competent authorities involved for not seeing to it that these particulars are remedied and the same competent authorities allaying the psychological agitation of the various individuals involved to show that there is someone in authority who really and truly cares!

Again the concept of the Advocate for Minors has failed miserably, without in anyway blaming individuals. The reality is that there is no infrastructure to make sure that the lawyers, appointed to look after the interests of minors, have adequate facilities available to be able to carry out their work in a reasonable time, because a parent not seeing his or her children even for a day can prove disastrous and when this day becomes a week, a month, and a month becomes months, considering that the new structures have been in operation for just over a year!

I could go on and on, but I repeat that this communication is not meant to dishearten the people who are expending so much effort to see that the Family Court works, it is meant to give a picture, which should have been given in Parliament during the review of the Ministry of Justice’s operation and the administration of justice in our Courts of Justice: our politicians speak as if it is a shame that one’s marriage has failed, as if it is a shame to have a child out of wedlock! Remedies relating to the access of the child are not easily provided when relations between a couple breaks down!

People involved want a solution: it is not those unaffected who can speak out, it is not those who read books and propagate theories who can only speak out, but give the floor to the people who are suffering, to the people who want a solution, to the parent who has not seen his children for weeks and months on end, because they can find no infrastructure to help them speed up what each and every individual in such cases craves: peace, happiness and getting on with one’s life!

Dr Emmy D. Bezzina is the Chairman of the Family Rights’ Association.