Wednesday saw the last trial presided over by Mr Justice Joe Galea Debono draw to a close. The trial was conducted with the typical speed – and thoroughness – that the Judge is known for. The vice president of the Chamber of Advocates thanked him for his service and said that lawyers and people who have to face trial had grown accustomed to the speedy, yet fair way, the judge saw cases brought to a close.

He is so right. Mr Justice Galea Debono is due to turn 65 soon and will retire. He has served Malta well, right back to the days when he was on the NTOM – the pre-cursor to the MTA. He also served very ably as a defence lawyer. But perhaps he will always be known as the judge who put duty above all else in applying the law. Allow us to be a bit informal – knowing the judge, he will not be too pleased at this tribute as it is in his nature to always do things with a sense of duty, not for praise. But this newspaper will tell people just what a servant Mr Justice has been. We have seen him bent over double with severe back pain and brought to court in a wheelchair – and still he sat on the bench for a whole day during a trial.

We have seen lawyers play for time, and rebuke them every time. We have seen him put his foot down time and time again to ensure that trials are conducted in as speedy and as thorough a manner as possible. In short, he has helped cut down the backlog of jury trials (some of them years old) almost single-handedly. This newspaper has had a few disagreements with the judge in the past, but that is the nature of print media and the law courts, it is an uneasy relationship at best. But we wish him well and we thank him for his sterling service. He will be sorely missed in his retirement; although we are sure that we have not seen the last of him yet.

And this is where we switch tack. About a decade ago, Malta’s judicial system was sluggish, to say the least. Trials took years to come to fruition – and not through lack of progress in investigations either. There was far too much red-tape and the court’s infrastructure was buckling under the massively increased workload it was facing. Raft after raft of reforms were implemented. We saw the set-up of the industrial tribunals, raising the ‘competence’ thresholds for magistrates to preside over cases where money claims are involved, the introduction of IT in the courts, the set-up of the family court, increasing the number of the judiciary and more. These have helped, but there is still more to be done on an infrastructural level.

But there is a very fine line between applying the law expediently and applying it irresponsibly. If there ever was a model of the balance between the two it is in the way Mr Justice Galea Debono handled the eight-year load he was given. And there is another very important issue to discuss. Although the government has tried to boost the number of prosecutors in the Attorney General’s Office, there are far too few (and inexperienced at that) prosecutors. The main argument is that these people have far too large a case-load compared to their salaries. While this is true, people must realise that such posts are normally taken with a sense of duty, almost a vocation. Perhaps it would be wise to adopt the retiring judge’s approach.