By – Dr Alfred Grech
Last week we were told by the Ministry for Gozo that it had proposed a site at Pjazza l-Assedju 1561 in Victoria for the new Law Courts. Reacting to opposing statements by Alternattiva Demokratika, the Ministry for Gozo suggests that the appropriate place to discuss the relocation of the Gozo courts is during the development permit planning process.

This could only mean one thing to me, namely that no one should express a point of view in public about a proposed government project once it has been submitted to the Planning Authority. The democratic process in this country, according to the Gozo Ministry, should therefore be reduced to the largely ineffective exercise of complaining to Mepa.

Of course this is nonsense. It is true that we have seen such instances in the past, when Mepa re-acted to public opinion, and retraced its steps. But complaining before Mepa is just one aspect of the democratic process. What about the fundamental principle that is at the very basis of any democracy – the freedom of expression, the freedom to constructively criticize when things are not the way they should be?

But the Gozo Ministry should not just defend the proposed new site for the Gozo Law Courts.

The Gozo Ministry should have done something about the Gozitan courts a long time ago. Unless prattling and empty slogans are to become the accepted pastime of our politicians and indeed all Gozitans, proposing a new site and defending it is the least that the Gozo Ministry should be doing in this regard, and at this point in time.

For example, the Ministry for Gozo should have started to address some of the logistics problems long ago. These problems are not solved by a simple change in nomenclature. And if indeed the question of nomenclature has to be addressed, it should have insisted on re-instating the dignity that the Gozo Courts deserve, namely elevating them to a judicial level with a fully-fledged judge to sit in superior jurisdiction. As it is, it remains a question of nomenclature, because the Gozo Courts is a Magistrate’s Court with the powers of a judge: an Inferior Court with superior jurisdiction. Probably I am the only one who sees the anomaly in this.

Of course relocating the Gozo Courts to anywhere in the middle of Victoria should be no problem. Any reasonable site would do. And the justification should not be the proximity to the bus terminus, but sensible planning, and pertinent environmental issues. Even at present, the Gozo Courts are only a walking distance from the bus terminus. But Gozitans, and indeed anybody having any reason to enter the precincts of the Gozo Courts, need to see some action, not just words.

And what is wrong with introducing a shuttle bus service? This is something it derides but is something the Ministry of Gozo should have thought of and worked on ages ago. It makes far better sense than launching such flimsy and romantic slogans as “eco-Gozo”, which mean nothing and bring even less to the debate about environmental sustainability. Unless the Gozo Ministry is somehow under the clutches of the heavy bus-owners group that may also promise sizeable election spoils, it is very far from a sensible traffic and environmental solution.

It is unthinkable that anybody would suggest that a shuttle bus service would increase traffic (sic). And yet the Ministry for Gozo does!

Dr. Alfred Grech