A new forensic year has started at the law courts and, once again, Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti took the opportunity to speak about the “overloaded” situation judges and magistrates have to deal with.

The Criminal Court, the Family Court and the Gozo Court barely have their heads above the water, he said. And from what can be gathered, the situation in the other spheres is not rosy either.

The 10 judges of the Civil Court, for example, are getting an average of 240 cases a year, delivering between 150 and 200 judgments, which means that the cases are accumulating. Each one of the judges has an average of 500 pending cases.

This is yet another result of the growth in population, an economic policy endorsed and encouraged by the Labour government since 2013, which has seen a staggering rise of more than 100,000 new residents for a population getting closer to 550,000.

We have spoken at length on how this population increase has had an effect on traffic, energy, education, infrastructure and more. It must now also be realised that more people also mean more disputes, and as a result this leads to a bigger workload on the law courts.

The Chief Justice himself has said it. The influx of foreigners taking up residence in Malta in the last 10 years has increased the pressure on the courts and it is only thanks to the judiciary that the system has not collapsed.

Over the years, the number of judges and magistrates has steadily increased too, but apparently this is not enough to meet with the demand. More than this, there is also a problem of space in the Law Courts, as it can only take so much.

As the newly-elected president of the Chamber of Advocates, Peter Fenech, said, opportunities were lost by the government to buy property close to the law courts building which could have served as an extension of the current premises. As things stand now, the volume of work that the law courts have to deal with is too much for the space and resources available.

Apart from having more magistrates and judges, and more space, other solutions were suggested. For example, the Chief Justice proposed that a retired judge takes over cases within the Court of Voluntary Jurisdiction. Another suggestion is the setting up of a specialised court tasked with hearing administrative cases, as happens in many other European countries.

He also proposed that some cases that are currently seen by magistrates, with the adequate changes to the laws, should start to be seen by tribunals and boards. These cases are the ones that carry low punishments and are more of an administrative nature.

These are all suggestions that the government should look into. Whether it has the will to do so is another matter.

It is therefore likely that when October 2024 arrives, we will hear the Chief Justice once again lament about the workload, the lack of space and resources, and give the same (and other) suggestions.