I refer to the article by Annaliza Borg appearing in your newspaper, TMID 1 June, under the title ‘Priestly sexual abuse – victims satisfied at once weekly hearings’. In the said article it was stated that “the court has started to hear (the) case in weekly sessions rather than once every eight months.”

I am directed to inform you that from a perusal of the relevant court record it is clear that at no stage was there ever any eight month interval or intervals between one sitting and another, not even during the periods when the presiding magistrate was seriously ill. Indeed, to date, more than 60 sittings have been held by the court, and simple arithmetic disproves the eight month interval assertion. Some of these sittings took several hours, and during other sittings the video-conferencing technique, which is necessarily more time-consuming than the ordinary procedure, was also used.

The article also stated that “it seems that a good amount of pressure was exerted from some authority,” suggesting that this authority was the President of the Republic, who had a meeting with the alleged victims of abuse before the Pope’s visit in April. Please be advised that at no stage was any contact made, much less any form of pressure exerted, by the President of Malta or his Office. In the instant case, as in all other cases, dates for sittings are determined by the court depending on, among other things, the nature of the case, how long it has been pending, and the myriad of other duties of the presiding magistrate or judge, as the case may be.

Joseph Sacco

Registrar

Criminal Courts and Tribunals

Editor’s note: The quotes in the above letter were lifted from what the spokesman of the victims, Lawrence Grech, told this newspaper, in that matters were improving. For weeks journalists have sent question upon question to various organs related to the judiciary in connection with this case and it is indeed very pertinent to note that a letter of reply was sent within days once the story broke. This is in stark contrast with the wall of silence which we have been presented with while trying to make headway in investigating this story. TMI will be contacting the victims and relaying the above to them and we shall be publishing their comments on the matter.