Magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona denied leaving a huge backlog of cases since he stopped presiding over sittings at the Gozo law courts.

He was testifying during the libel case he filed against The Malta Independent on Sunday’s editor Noel Grima. According to the magistrate, the article featured on Sunday 14 October, entitled “Government investigation into ‘delays’ at Gozo Court” had three main false allegations. These were that he did not deliver any judgements in pending cases since leaving Gozo, as well as leaving a huge backlog and pending inquiries.

Magistrate Micallef Trigona said that he was given around 400 cases when he started working in Gozo at the beginning of 2001. Upon ending his duties in January, the magistrate said he left about 200 cases pending . He also pointed out that in July, August and October he held three sittings in Gozo where he handed down judgements on pending cases.

He admitted that some inquiries were still open, however, he said these were still pending as experts’ reports had still not been filed. There were between 25 to 30 such inquiries.

During the period in which he worked in Gozo, said magistrate Micallef Trigona he had to juggle one third of Gozo’s case load, while presiding over sittings in both Malta and Gozo.