The Department of Information media release on the “positive trends” at the law courts (TMID, 11 December) left out only one thing – it did not attribute the trends to anyone, not even to the Justice Minister. It is unusual, isn’t it, for no government minister to claim credit. Maybe no government minister believes there is anything positive at the law courts? Maybe the trends are non-existent?

In the Family Court, in Malta and Gozo, 76 per cent of cases have been pending less than three years, the media release said. How very positive! Can we also please be told how many cases make up the remaining 24 per cent, and how many of those 24 per cent of cases have been at the law courts for more than eight years, or even for more than 10 years?

The 24 per cent are people too, if it needs pointing out. Living a life of misery, because their cases at the Family Court keep dragging on and on, and no one seems to bother. Babies whose parents’ relationship breaks up become children, children become adults, and at the law courts everything goes on regardless.

There are mothers who can hardly make ends meet being hounded by government departments for these or those arrears. Is the minister aware of that? They get a bill for hundreds of euros which they must settle by such and such a date, sometimes that date being the day after they receive the letter. But no government minister seems aware of the heartbreak and humiliation.

Mothers being paid a miserly maintenance cannot form any relationship, for fear of losing that maintenance, no matter how miserly it is. While the husband runs around free as the wind. And any mother finding a part time job is in danger of losing her maintenance too, though that maintenance hardly suffices for the day-to-day needs.

But it is all right. The Family Court judges are comfortable on their salary and government car, and the minister too. What is 10 years to them, in somebody else’s life! They have money to buy Christmas gifts for their children and relatives. It is only the victims of their inaction who suffer. And the victims’ children.

C. Mifsud

Valletta