Prime Minister Robert Abela has indicated that the government has no intention of proposing harsher court punishments for those who cause traffic accidents which result in casualties but instead placed pressure on judges and magistrates to hand down appropriate punishments within the limits of the law.
“If the punishments are applied the way they should be, then they are sufficient,” Abela said.
Instead of questioning the laws, Abela questioned: “Are our judges applying punishments which are reflecting the gravity of the act?”
Asked by the media whether the law provides harsh enough penalties for involuntary homicides, Abela first noted that the government has already proposed increasing fines for a number of traffic offences.
However, he said that there needs to more awareness around this and to realise that a car can be “a lethal weapon.” “This is why we have focussed on harsher fines for people who use their mobile phones whilst driving.”
However, when addressing the question he said that “the penalties that there are, are already very high.”
He said that then it is up to the magistrate, who would need to evaluate all the circumstances before them, to decide how harsh the penalty for the offence will be.
“We are talking about years of imprisonment, for example, involuntary homicide could go up to four years in prison. Naturally, this remains at the discretion of the judge.”
When pressed and asked whether the punishments are harsh enough when victims suffer from permanent disabilities, he said: “Even in accidents which involuntarily result with a permanent disability on the victim, even here our courts can apply prison sentences which are effective.”
The National Statistics Office (NSO) published statistics on Tuesday which revealed that during the first quarter of 2023, road traffic accidents and casualties increased when compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
The most recent deaths were two men from Pakistan who died on a bike in Mosta after a car crashed into the bike whilst the driver was under the influence of drugs last Saturday.
During the parliamentary debate about introducing a bill to introduce harsher fines, PN MP Joe Giglio, last week, said that the penalties given to drivers who have caused injury or disability to victims of traffic accidents must reflect the nature of the victim’s injury, saying that previous sentences given by courts have been too light on drivers.
Last month, the court passed a judgment which sentenced 27-year-old Renald Aquilina to a three-year driving ban and a suspended licence, who permanently disabled 50-year-old Moira Cauchi after he ran her over at 110km per hour.
She was unable to testify about the 2016 incident, with her husband telling the court of how they were picking up the pieces of a life shattered by Aquilina’s reckless driving, with the victim now allowed to retain her bank job in a less taxing role but not as a manager.