Despite the fact that our Family Court Building has been officially operative since 16 December, 2003, one vital aspect of its proper functioning has been constantly ignored; namely the security and safety of the people who make use of it.
The Family Court Building, a former Night Club in Strait Street – Valletta, was never structured to carry out the many important functions associated and related to the Family Court. The latter is now the busiest Court in our Justice system. The work load on the three Adjudicators (two judges and one magistrate) keeps increasing; the Registry is too small for the amount of work it has to process daily – it was only thanks to the initiative of an employee seconded from the dry docks that an Archive Section was set up.
Mediation is obligatory in the Family Court; cases keep being filed every day, and yet we still have inadequate Mediation Rooms – with half of them blatantly not up to the standards required by law, as there are no windows and no form of ventilation in them.
The volumes of Judicial Acts connected with legal separations keep being filed incessantly. However, the Criminal Family Court has seen an alarming increase in the numerous cases being brought before Magistrate Anthony Vella, LL.D. Were it not for the praiseworthy characteristics of this most tolerant magistrate and his endearing staff, chaos supreme would reign in this crucial area of our Family Court.
What, however, is frighteningly preoccupying, is the lack of safety and security given to the hundreds of people who crowd the stairways, the small waiting room and the tiny, narrow corridor leading to Hall 24 (an inadequately low-ceiling structure, definitely not designed to bear this load) on the second floor of the building where criminal family cases are heard.
Should a fire occur, many would be the victims – a good number of them trampled and choking in the ensuing panic, because there would simply be no place to run. This warning must be taken seriously by the competent authorities, who must not wait for tragedy to strike first – as our politicians are usually prone to do.
I have been informed that there isn’t water reservoir anywhere in the building. The fire boxes are there only for the purpose of being connected to the fire engines once they eventually make it and arrive to the narrow Strait Street! By which time, the tragedy would have materialized.
Let us act now.
Emmy Bezzina
Alpha Liberal Democratic Party