During the past years, my ministry submitted in Parliament a substantial number of bills (38), of which 33 have been approved. A large number of legal notices has also been put to the light and are today part and parcel of our legal system

One of these legal notices is linked to the entry into force of the establishment of the Petitions Board that deals with traffic and environment contraventions, regulated under the Commissioners for Justice Act (Cap. 291 of the Laws of Malta).

With respect to traffic contraventions, all drivers are, or should be, by now familiar with the local warden system, with all the pros and cons that are associated with it. Although the system today has been more or less widely acknowledged, in this I note that there are still a number of people who do not know how to contest a traffic ticket which they believe was issued unfairly in their respect.

In view of the growing number of complaints raised by motorists stating that they have been victims of unfair traffic fines, on 1 January, 2006 we specifically established the Petitions Board to review these alleged injustices. This positive measure gave people the legal right to seek redress of their grievances through less bureaucratic and time-consuming procedures.

We are now building on the advantages of appearing at local tribunals as opposed to possibly lengthy court proceedings. After six years of experience in this field, we can now build further on a solid foundation. Legal provisions establish that the Board, while giving serious consideration to all incoming petitions, should only accede to a petition either in part or in whole when the reasons provided by the complainant are manifestly justified.

In this respect, Article 6 of the Petitions (Local Tribunals) Regulations (SL 291.04) cites five instances which qualify without excluding other instances as valid reasons for revoking a traffic contravention, namely: (a) When an evident mistake is made in the identity of the offender or in the identification of any vehicle involved in the scheduled offence; (b) When an evident error is committed, resulting in the offender being wrongly found guilty of the scheduled offence; (c) On humanitarian grounds attenuating the circumstances relating to the commission of the scheduled offence; (d) When the issue of the charge is manifestly unjust or oppressive, considering the nature and facts of the case; (e) When the procedures as set out in the Service of Notice by Mail Regulations for the issue of the contravention have not been followed.

Over the last six years the general public has lodged 92,184 petitions. 59,316 or 65% of these were acceded to by the Petitions Board, while 35% or 32,036 were rejected. It is clearly evident that the petition system has proved to be a success in terms of deliverance of justice; it has benefited our citizens by rectifying mistakes that any type of human mechanism is likely to commit. However, there is still, in my opinion, a need for creating greater awareness of the petition process among the public and for fine-tuning the system in an effort to speed up the rate at which cases are presently being concluded.

Firstly, I believe that details of the benefits derived from the system should be given wider publicity coverage. Secondly, there is room for change in different important areas.

The time is ripe to ensure that the system should use modern technology which today’s world promotes, ensuring that each person will be given the opportunity to lodge a petition from the comfort of home, thus eliminating all the conventional methods used in the exchange of correspondence – writing, letters, etc. Therefore, in the coming weeks, complainants will be able to file their petition electronically and all the subsequent correspondence will be exchanged through the same electronic means. Secondly, we aim to shorten the duration for concluding cases at these tribunals to a shorter period than the one now operable.

In the coming weeks and months we shall continue working along these lines in this important sector in an effort to fine-tune the system even further for the benefit of the citizens and to ensure that more citizens are made aware of the advantages of this system.