"Justice delayed is justice denied" is an oft-heard legal maxim.
It means that if legal redress or equitable relief to an injured party is available, but is not forthcoming in a timely fashion, it is effectively the same as having no remedy at all.
It’s a maxim which has been consistently repeated by justice ministers in Malta in the past years: most recent justice ministers Owen Bonnici and Edward Zammit Lewis in particular have used the maxim quite consistently.
However, statistics which emerged from parliament earlier this week show that 88 cases – including eight murders – are awaiting trial by jury. The earliest of these cases dates back to 2008 – which is now 13 years ago.
Such backlogs are not present just here: it is common knowledge that a high number of cases have been ongoing for years upon years. A Council of Europe study last year in fact found that cases across the board take far longer than the European average to be concluded, and that Malta is one of the eight countries where over a fifth of pending cases are older than two years.
Earlier this month, we saw what the consequences of such delays in court cases can be, after Alfred Degiorgio – one of the alleged hitmen behind the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia – was awarded €7,000 in damages over delays in a court case related to a holdup on a cash van which has been ongoing for 18 years.
The delay stemmed from the fact that it took the courts a whole decade to appoint a fingerprint expert, after the first expert renounced his brief – and a further two years from then on for the expert to submit his final analysis report in 2013.
This is not the only form of consequence – who knows how many stories there are of smaller cases, where the accused has since reformed him or herself but faces charges or even prison time over a case which would have been ongoing for years.
Where exactly the fault of the matter lies is a bit up in the air: when this debate last reared its head, the Association of Judges said that more magistrates and judges were need for the courts to function effectively, while Justice Minister Zammit Lewis said that the delays are not because of a lack of judges and that everyone needs to roll their sleeves up.
Progress has been made, as said by the President of the Chamber of Advocates himself in an interview with this newspaper last October, but there is still a long way to go.
There is then the pandemic dimension of the matter: the aforementioned progress has also likely been thrown back by the backlog caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Many cases have been put off – including high-profile trials-by-jury such as that of the Liam Debono case – and a top criminal lawyer had warned in a webinar that it could takes years to resolve the said backlog.
Given all this, a coherent strategy on how to reduce these delays with agreement from all stakeholders is needed. Justice delayed truly is justice denied – especially for the affected parties.