Court agency says it is has no documents on court experts’ payments

Information on how members of the judiciary select court experts, how much they are paid from the public purse – and for what – is to remain a ‘state secret’, despite declarations to the contrary by Justice Minister Jonathan Attard.

Last month, Attard told parliament that during the last three years, the State’s bill for court experts skyrocketed to a staggering €26 million. Yet no information was ever published about these court experts, who assign them, or how much they are paid for their work.

Various administrations have criticised the decades-old system. Meanwhile, the Chamber of Advocates has repeatedly called for transparency, describing the current situation as a “racket” based mostly on acquaintance and friendship between members of the judiciary and the experts themselves.

Despite public statements by various justice ministers from different administrations that the system needed to be changed and that an element of accountability and transparency must be introduced, this has never been implemented.

The Shift has encountered several barriers when investigating the system. The latest episode involved a declaration by the Court Service Agency that it does not have the necessary information about what is being paid to experts.

The Shift filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) request in June 2021, asking the Court Service Agency for a list of court experts whom members of the judiciary had tasked with work in 2019 and 2020. The request also asked for information on how much the experts were paid and who assigned their tasks.

The agency turned down the request, declaring it did not have the requested information.

In a formal complaint to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner (IDPC), The Shift argued that it was not possible that the government agency responsible for issuing payments to these court experts did not possess such basic information.

Three years later, and after a long legal process that followed all the steps outlined in the Freedom of Information Act, this information is still being kept secret.

In a recent decision a few weeks ago, the Information and Data Protection Commissioner criticised the agency for breaching the Freedom of Information Act when failing to reply to The Shift’s requests within the established timeframes.

However, the Commissioner decided that once the agency declared it did not have the necessary information, it could not be forced to supply the requested information.

How the system works

Court experts are individuals tasked by members of the judiciary, primarily magistrates, to assist in gathering evidence or conducting criminal proceedings.

The magistrate chooses the expert. Although the justice ministry compiles lists of experts, judiciary members are not obliged to follow them and can appoint whomever they wish.

When the assigned task is completed, the expert sends an invoice, approved by the magistrate who ordered the report, to the Court Service Agency. The government agency then issues the payment.

In 2013, the Justice Reform Commission, headed by Judge Giovanni Bonello, criticised the ‘obsolete’ expert system practised in court and recommended a total overhaul, but this has yet to occur.