There are currently 2,069 magisterial inquiries officially under way – 1,769 in Malta and 300 in Gozo – according to statistics given to MaltaToday this week by the Ministry for Justice and Home Affairs.
The magistrate to have landed the largest number of inquiries is Dr Joseph Apap Bologna with 381, followed by Dr Michael Mallia with 339. Dr Giovanni Grixti weighs in at 231. On average, Maltese magistrates are currently investigating 150 cases apiece.
These figures do not include extraordinary judicial inquiries such as the one ordered by Justice Minister Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici into the case of Nicholas Azzopardi, who died in Mater Dei Hospital on April 22 after alleging violent mistreatment while in police custody.
The judicial inquiry was entrusted last May to retired judge Alex Manchè, and is currently being cited by the minister as the reason for not enacting legal amendments, approved by Parliament in 2002, which would allow detainees the right to talk to a lawyer while under arrest.
But the statistics do take into account historically unfinished magisterial inquiries such as the one into the death by letter bomb of Karin Grech in 1979. Theoretically, that inquest is still ongoing 30 years after the event, and has even outlived its original inquiring magistrate.
MaltaToday also requested the dates when each individual inquiry commenced, but a ministry spokesman explained that there were legal impediments to divulging this kind of information.
The same spokesman also confirmed that the minister is currently in talks with the office of the Attorney General regarding amendments to the law governing magisterial inquiries. “Further details will be made public in due course,” the official said.
In an interview with this newspaper last Sunday, Mifsud Bonnici admitted that he was concerned at the high number of unfinished inquiries, and revealed that a legal proviso stipulates a maximum period of two months within which magisterial inquiries should be concluded. “The longer they take to conclude, the more constrained we will be when we get to making changes to the system,” he said. “There is a fixed term in the law by when they should finish an inquiry, set at 60 days. I understand that at times they need to wait for some experts’ report, or they have a work overload. There are some inquiries that get done in two months’ time, but they’re not the majority.”

rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt