This communication is not meant to be taken as some sort of unobjective criticism for our Minister of Justice, for our Parliamentary Secretary concerned with the administration of Justice, or to any adjudicants in the Family Court, or to the Director of the Courts of Justice, and above all to the staff working in the crammed space at our Family Court Registry.

We have to stop in this country relating any form of objective criticism, relating to the proper functioning of any institution in our country with wrongly-interpreted criticism of the self! This is a malady, a serious malady in our country, which has to be put aside in the interests of the overall objectivity of any submission that is put forth.

Our Family Court Registry, as it should have been foreseen by the powers-that-be, is far too small and most inadequate for the immense volume of work that has to be carried on in this Registry.

The space needs to be at least three times as much as it is now, because in reality what is termed as a Family Court Registry, which has to handle what might be termed as two Courts simultaneously, plus numerous applications for whatever couples in matrimonial, or personal disputes relating to personal affairs might deem that they have some legal right to file for, cannot handle in a professional and efficient way the volume of work that has to be processed plus the services that are required not only to be given but also to be available!

For instance if a lawyer wants to consult a Court File relating to a client, there is no adequate way how this can be done. And should more than one lawyer request this service, the situation becomes chaotic, which situation might then impinge on the proper Administration of the transparency of Justice!

The situation is such that a lawyer, who is also a Court Official doing his duty in the interests of his or her client, a fact which apparently is being deliberately forgotten, has no space where to be able to sit down in peace, consult the Court File in discretion, and once finished return the file to the official in charge of such an undertaking.

There is a small table in a corner of the Family Court Registry, upon which table rests a huge fan, and over which lies an air-conditioner, where the lawyer, if the table is available, is requested to sit down on one available chair where in a small crammed space consultation of a Court File is to be made, amidst the inevitable noise that would be going on in the small Court Registry space, where a number of employees are doing their jobs, lawyers and legal procurators are coming in and going out through a door, which is exactly in line with this table on which stands a huge fan, over which lies this air-conditioner! And if this lawyer chooses to dictate whatever work is being performed, then one has to be careful to keep one's tonal volume down risking in the process that with the ongoing noise the registration of a Court Act would not be made clear.

This situation is unacceptable in any Courts of Justice that a Sovereign State like ours tends to boast about!

This is not some debate where anyone feels offended when stark facts are being stated: it should have been obvious to whoever was planning the Family Court that it was not so much the ceremony of cutting a ribbon to inaugurate the building of a Family Court that mattered, but that the building housed adequate facilities for the Administration of Justice to be properly executed, particularly when it comes to a Family Court, which all who work in this Court know, is a Court that bubbles with tension as very often couples are running after each other and pretending that each side's version of events should be accepted by the Court.

Something has to be done, and it has to be done urgently and with dignity. It is not acceptable for a lawyer to be treated in such a way that when he or she requests for a Court File, he finds himself being told that the file will be made available, but it cannot be taken out of the crammed space of the Registry, that the lawyer has to stay in a corner, on a chair, by a table on which a huge fan stands under an air-conditioner, where the serious lawyer as a professional Court Official must carry out serious and responsible work in analyzing certain details from a Court File relating to which privacy and discretion, plus an environment that is not noisy, is necessary.

Hence, it is being recommended that one of the rooms adjacent to the Court Registry has to be immediately made available for lawyers and legal procurators to be able to examine Court Files in peace and without any undue introspection by whoever may be curious. Adequate desks or tables if you like, must be made available, plus a number of chairs, possibly no huge fans on these tables or overlying air-conditioners where one can work in peace, in the interest of the transparency of the Administration of Justice!

It is good and proper to move forward in life, but this must be done in a professional serious way, without anyone being unduly offended that this is some sort of personal criticism for that or the other individual.

The latter emotions are not of my concern: what is of my concern is that the current Family Court Registry is inadequate to work in, not only because it is small and there is a crammed space to carry out the enormous volume of work that is to be carried out, but whoever wants to do anything seriously in this registry is impeded by the lack of space and basic adequate facilities that are expected as normal in any country that boasts of a humane Family Court!

Yours Faithfully:

Emmy D. BEZZINA
Chairman: Family Rights' Association.