Reference is made to a letter The Family Court by C. Mifsud (TMID, 15 December).

C. Mifsud seems to doubt the veracity of the information contained in the press release issued by the Department of Information regarding the positive trends at the law courts. I suggest that C. Mifsud visits the Justice and Home Affairs Ministry website and confirms for himself or herself that the information given was correct and that the trends are clear. Statistics speak for themselves and the public should be made aware of them. No political mileage was meant to be sought from these objective trends. The website also gives full details of the cases which have been pending for any amount of years.

The author’s insinuation that the minister and the judges in the Family Court are insensitive to the delays the couples have to endure during court proceedings is far from reality. Apart from the fact that there are various circumstances which might contribute to delays in a court case, these cannot be attributed to either the minister or the judges. Each case has to be treated on its own merit and there is no hard and fast rule which dictates why a case takes longer than others. It would not be amiss to state that delaying tactics are at times resorted to by the parties themselves. And further to this it is also not amiss to state that this ministry has introduced several amendments to improve matters.

In fact, the Family Court had been established in December 2003 primarily to address the problems related to separations and the hardships brought about by court proceedings. At the time – as C Mifsud may or may not recall – many had criticised the government for introducing measures which were deemed to be too radical. The establishment of the family mediators aimed at trying to reconcile the couple and if not to help them reach an amicable solution without having to institute a court case was the cardinal issue here.

Obviously, this does not mean that the couples undergoing separation proceedings are in some eternal bliss, but surely this government is on record that it has taken many a step in the right direction to alleviate the hardship.

It is one of the aims of this ministry to ensure that this flow of information be kept. Through this method the public will be abreast with the positive and negative aspects of court work.

Darrell Pace

Communication

Co-Ordinator

Justice and Home Affairs Ministry