I wonder why the courts’ administration, or whoever is responsible for it, appoints court experts who hold the courts in such low esteem that they do not turn up to give evidence about their investigation into whatever they were appointed to investigate.

I refer in particular to a case I have at the Small Claims Tribunal. A motorcycle I had parked in a garage where six cars were also parked, was damaged by the intense heat created when one of the cars caught fire, with the flames spreading to the vehicle parked near it. That was in November, 2002.

It is an important case to me. Apart from the over Lm1,100 I paid for the bike’s repair, I am in contestation with an insurance company that seems to have everything on its side, law-wise. Though the car owner was insured for fire and theft, and he will be reimbursed by his insurance company for the loss of his old VW bomber, his insurer expects me, apparently with the law’s blessing, to foot the bill for the damage caused to my bike by their insured.

I am at a disadvantage. No insurance company will insure a biker comprehensively or for fire and theft. At least, I have not found one which does. All I can get is third party insurance. So I can only recoup my expenses from the owner of the car that caught fire and damaged my machine. The court expert’s testimony can be vital to my case. But I am apparently relying on what appears to be a highly inflated ego.

When the fire expert, apparently an over-burdened university lecturer, first appeared to testify – I can’t remember how many months ago – he “forgot” to bring his papers with him.

He has since failed to appear at least six times. First he just did not make an appearance at the tribunal, then it was because of an oversight on my lawyer’s part, another time due to an oversight of the tribunal, last June because, according to the tribunal chairman, the expert had “that morning gone abroad”, and last 20 September because the court’s notice, or whatever it is called, calling on him to appear to testify was not accepted by the university because the lecturer was abroad.

It is several weeks, sometimes months, between one tribunal sitting and another. In June my case was put off to 20 September because the one July date available was not suitable for me as I was going to be abroad. It has now been put off to 1 November. This case has been dragging on for so long that the Justice Commissioner who was hearing it has now retired and there is a new face on the bench. So more delays are likely. The case will probably end soon after this court expert testifies, if he ever decides to acknowledge the tribunal’s existence.

Is there nothing that can make him do so? Does the tribunal have no power at all to make him give his testimony? What kind of tribunal is it that is hearing my case, when it seems incapable of getting a court-appointed expert to testify? I am sure that if I burst out in court with frustration,

contempt of court proceedings would land me in jail.

Roger Mifsud

Rabat