In 2024, it may sound incredible, but it is perfectly true, as I have personally experienced it.

Thursday, November 21, was supposed to be a normal civil court sitting schedule, presided by Justice Aaron Bugeja in Hall 17, with a list of no fewer than 23 cases, among which some of a constitutional nature, with a substantial number of witnesses summoned to give their testimony.

It transpired, however, after several vain attempts to fix the fault, that the sitting couldn't even start, as there was a malfunctioning recording system in that hall. So, after even more precious time lost in trying to figure out how to get things moving while lawyers, the parties to the cases and the summoned witnesses were fuming in the hall and outside, it was finally decided to move the sitting to the nearby Hall 16.

Yet, even here, after more precious time lost with the court agency's technicians trying to get this hall's recording equipment system functioning, it resulted in an incompatibility issue with the system itself.

Obviously, the judge had no option but to adjourn all cases to February 2025 through no fault of his own, and he was humble and decent enough to publicly apologise to all summoned witnesses, the lawyers and the parties for this unacceptable loss of precious time and resources, not least his own.

Mind you, such an episode has been happening all too often, and it is only one of many chronic justice shortcomings.

It is useless for the justice minister to boast how much digital, infrastructural and logistic investment is being pumped into the court system when such a basic and pivotal resource as a simple recording equipment system continues to function with fits and starts.

It is about time the minister and the court services agency start giving due attention to basics before even considering innovative and modern tools ostensibly to speed up and make more effective the due process of law.

 

Dr Mark Said

Msida