Malta is examining whether to introduce remote courts amid the coronavirus crisis, Justice Minister Edward Zammit Lewis has confirmed.

Zammit Lewis told Lovin Malta he has taken note of a recent decree by Judge Edwina Grima, which called on Parliament to legalise remote courts, and that he had already been studying its potential introduction before this judgement.

“We have to make sure that video conferencing doesn’t lead to new problems that could breach the rights of the prosecution or the accused,” he said. “For example, both parties must have a right to see all court documents and to cross-examine witnesses.”

Grima passed her decree yesterday after Yorgen Fenech, the man charged with assassinating Daphne Caruana Galizia, asked the courts to declare his continued detention illegal in light of a legal notice which suspended court proceedings indefinitely.

Fenech’s lawyer Gianluca Caruana Curran warned that his client is now being detained without even knowing when the next court sitting will be, which he claimed breaches his right to be innocent until proven guilty.

While Judge Grima refused Fenech’s request, she did urge Parliament to introduce remote court sessions, just as in the UK, to allow cases to proceed through the COVID-19 crisis.

Despite expressing openness to remote courts, Zammit Lewis noted that the legal notice which suspended courts also grants judges and magistrates absolute discretion to preside over cases that they deem to be urgent or in the public interest.

“If someone is alleging that their human rights are being breached, then that is a case of urgency,” he said. “Any judge or magistrate should continue to hear cases they deem fit. This legal notice is not a blanket provision for the judiciary to stay home and not work.We closed the court registry, not the courts, and any judge is free to go to work, with the necessary precautions in place.”