The PN has said that "there was no need for a public inquiry to confirm that the police force is overworked, overstretched, but definitely not overpaid," in reaction to the recent findings of an inquiry into Bernice Cassar's death.

Cassar was killed in a shooting in Kordin last November on a road close to MCAST. She was a mother of two from Qrendi, aged 40, and was driving a Nissan Qashqai at the time of the incident. Roderick Cassar is charged with the femicide of his wife, and is pleading not guilty.

Based on the conclusions and recommendations of Justice Emeritus Geoffrey Valenzia's inquiry on the responsibility of each entity in relation to the murder of Bernice Cassar, the judge found that "the system had failed her."

The judge said, in the conclusion that he "cannot say that what happened was directly the fault of someone in particular, but the whole system of domestic violence didn't work as it was meant to work, as it didn't protect who was repeatedly asking for protection. The system didn't work because 1) lack of resources, and 2) increasing workload."

Speaking at the event, PN MPs Joe Giglio and Karol Aquilina both offered scathing remarks regarding how the current administration is handling the pressures that are stressing the justice system.

"We have been speaking about the shortcomings in the police force for a long time," said Giglio.

"This demotivation is even seen in the rate of higher-up officials leaving the force before attaining the necessary 25 years of service, which are required to obtain a pension," he added.

Further, recruitment measures are not enough to keep our streets safe, as calls for recruitment are repeatedly left unanswered, he said.

Citing a MaltaToday survey, Giglio said that this is having negative effects on the public's sense of safety, where a full 27.6% of respondents stated that safety concerns were foremost on their minds.

The lack of resources, the demotivation, and the poor standards of work of the police force are all contributing to creating a system that will increasingly "create victims", Giglio said.

Aquilina enumerated 5 things that "the PN has long since raised, that were also raised by the inquiry."

Firstly, in Malta there is one magistrate who adjudicates all domestic violence cases, he said. Statistics show that this magistrate, last December, had more than 1,600 pending cases.

Secondly, certain court appointments are being heard after 2 years, creating an enormous backlog, he said. Thirdly, it's not enough to appoint one more magistrate to help with the bloated case load, but there need to be more police and court staff, he added.

Fourthly, there must be some sort of filtering system that assigns priority to the most urgent cases, he said.

Fifthly, there's no coordination between the magistrate's courts handling criminal cases and the family courts, he said, adding that this can result in situations where the magistrate's courts issue a protection order against an individual while the family court enables that same individual access to his family.

"These 5 points show how desperate the court system is when it comes to domestic abuse cases," said Aquilina.