And while this “ridiculous and pitiful” situation continues to reign at the Law Courts, the three forensic scientists who work at the laboratory are still reporting for work at the Finance Ministry, sitting in an office all day, staring at a wall.

Nearly a month ago, the Occupational Health and Safety Authority ordered the Forensic Laboratory staff not to carry out work inside the lab because of serious health hazards that had to be addressed before work inside the lab could continue.

Sources at the Law Courts said the cases were piling up as they cannot be closed because one important factor of the case – the report of the forensic experts – was not available.

The sources said one lawyer requested the court to free his client who was being charged with a drug-related crime, on the basis that “justice delayed is justice denied”. He wanted the court to free his client because since there was no forensic report, there was no evidence against his client and consequently he should be freed.

Other sources told this newspaper that the matter is being dealt with directly by the Prime Minister’s Office. The matter is being dealt with from the administrative perspective rather than the political one. The OPM assured The Malta Independent that “a lot is being done”.

The sources said permanent secretary J.R. Grima had called a meeting with the three forensic experts in which he had insinuated, if he had not told them directly, that the problems they were facing were all their fault because they had decided not to join the Malta National Laboratory when this was being restructured.

Contacted by this newspaper, the forensic experts were asked to react to the recent development in parliament earlier this week when Speaker of the House of Representatives Anton Tabone turned down a request for the House to debate the situation at the Forensic Laboratory with urgency.

The reason he gave was that since the lab has been closed for four weeks, there was nothing urgent about the issue. Answering another request by Labour MPs Gavin Gulia and Anglu Farrugia on Wednesday, the Speaker said the issue should be brought up at another sitting.

To this the reaction was: “This is a situation which can be laughed at and cried over at the same time. It is unbelievable. How does the Speaker know how urgent it is? The court cases are stalled because our reports are missing, not because we don’t want to work but because we simply cannot function. This is how urgent it is, Mr Speaker.”

The experts also complained that certain tests can no longer be

carried out because blood samples, swabs and body fluids, among other items, had not been stored in the right conditions, and had thus lost their value as evidence.

Sources at court told this newspaper that two magistrates have recently called on Mr Grima to explain what is happening at the Forensic Laboratory because they cannot continue their work without the reports of these forensic experts.

Asked how the lawyers were taking the situation, the sources said the criminal lawyers were waiting for the right time to pull the right strings to get their clients off the hook because of the lack of important evidence.

Meanwhile, The Malta Independent also tried to get an official comment on how the work in court was being affected by the situation at the Forensic Laboratory, possibly even with statistics. However, we were told that this would be very difficult to achieve because each deputy

registrar assigned to every magistrate kept his or her own records.

It is understood that none of the magistrates have ever complained to the court administration about the situation at the laboratory.

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