AG responds to LATT president

ATTORNEY General Faris Al Rawi has replied to Law Association president Douglas Mendes, SC, accusing the association of giving the “entirely wrong impression” that it was “some how caught off guard in the structuring of the Criminal Division and District Criminal and Traffic Court, which will seek to blend the jurisdictions of the magisterial courts and the Criminal High Courts as well as the introduce Criminal Masters of the Court.

On Friday, Mendes wrote to Al Rawi expressing concerns with provisions of the Criminal Division and District Criminal Traffic Court Bill, the Payments into Court Bill 2018 and the Miscellaneous Provisions (Supreme Court of Judicature and Children) Bill. Mendes asked the AG to hold his hand on debate of the legislation, while asking for consultation with the association.

On Monday, debate on the Miscellaneous Provisions (Supreme Court of Judicature and Children) Bill, which, among other things, seeks to increase the complement of judges, was abandoned and the Law Association was given until Friday to provide its comments.

In his letter to Mendes yesterday, Al Rawi said it was a matter of public record that the Law Association was consulted on multiple occasions and in multiple ways in respect of the establishment of the Children’s Court.

“Not a single comment has come from the Law Association let alone an adverse one, since the assent of the law which created the Children Court. This spectacular observation is underscored by the fact that hundreds of matters have been listed and actually heard in the two Children courts, where the essence of what is contained in the Criminal Division Bill is in active and actual practice.”

Addressing the The Miscellaneous Provisions (Supreme Court of Judicature and Children) Bill, Al Rawi said it was true that the Government proposed to increase the number of Pusine judges from 49 to 64 and the number of Court of Appeal judges from 12 to 15 and that it proposes to allow Judges to be appointed from the entire Commonwealth.

He told Mendes there were over 29,000 preliminary inquiries in backlog; two-thirds of the prison population were in pre-trial detention with matters over 17 to 20 years in delay; there were over 94,000 matters pending at the magistrates’ courts with the backlog growing year on

year and if trials for murder alone occupied the full attention of the existing complement of judges in the Assizes it will take at least ten years to deal with the backlog alone.

“The Government’s proposal to increase the number of Pusine and Court of Appeal judges with a broadened range to include candidates from the entire Commonwealth has come on the back of the introduction and implementation of Criminal Proceedings Rules, the opening of new courts and specialist courts as evidenced by the Children Courts; the introduction of a computerised registry in courts; the filling of vacancies in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions; the increase in manpower at the Finance Intelligence Unit; the increase in manpower at the Financial Investigations Branch of the TTPS; the reforms to the Land Registry etc. Judicial capacity is perhaps the most critical aspect required to address the nightmare that is the criminal

justice system.”

He also said there were constitutional special majority issues related to calls to amend the way in which judges were appointed.

“The Opposition’s track record on the support for special majority legislation speaks for itself. The Law Association has also recently completed an exercise of reviewing the manner in which Judges are appointed. The courts are currently considering issues surrounding the Judicial and Legal Services Commission.”

“The Government is in the course of considering potential amendments to the law relative to judicial appointments. The issue of immediately providing for more judicial capacity can be separated from the debate on constitutional reform as the manner of appointing judges and the entrenchment of the Judicial and Legal Services Commission in our Republican Constitution

has been in existence for many decades.”

Al Rawi said Government held the view that the “many thousands of criminal matters” languishing in the system must be addressed immediately “ lest we continue to spend billions on an unchanged system expecting a different result.”

“The chasm of decades between charge and conviction or acquittal has to be immediately closed.”