The police and the investigative authorities need to get their act together. We have seen too many delays, too many mistakes, and their actions over the years have resulted in a distrust of them by sections of the population.

Firstly, one must mention the slow pace at which investigations into the hospitals concession deal are moving. There is supposedly a magisterial inquiry that has been ongoing since 2019. It’s been too long and following the recent judgement annulling the contracts and what the judge wrote down in it, investigations need to pick up the pace and action must be taken. Police have been too passive on the deal. One must ask, why not investigate on their own volition?  It had taken a request by a civil society NGO to get a magisterial inquiry in the first place after all, it was with no thanks to the police force.

Then one has to mention the lack of investigations in the past. Was any action taken against the big fish following the Panama Papers leak? Was there a proper investigation into them? What about on past scandals?

But it is not just on political issues that the police are under fire and have been criticised.

In the case of Bernice Cassar – who was killed despite having filed a number of reports, an inquiry highlighted that the system failed her. It found that the system didn't work because of a lack of resources, and increasing workload. With regard to the police this led to a delay in the processing of reports, bad or no risk assessment and an inadequate and non-immediate response on the part of the police. With regard to the courts, the lack of resources and the workload of the magistrate led to delays for cases to be appointed and heard.

This is unacceptable. The government has appointed a second magistrate for such cases given the enormous workload but, realistically speaking, is this enough? The government also addressed a number of recommendations the judge made, indicating how they intend to tackle the issues, which is a good first step. But one must ask, with regards to the police, does the domestic violence unit have enough officers? Also, do officers in the districts have the correct training to respond to situations of alleged emotional domestic abuse rather than just physical abuse for instance? One hopes that they do. If they don’t, then that is a failing.

The above issues are just a handful of the problems that exist.

In terms of the operations of the police, is it right for people to go to their local police office to find it closed, with an intercom? Is it right that one would need to travel to a few localities over to file a report? Why aren’t the police finding enough recruits to solve this problem?