UHM temporarily suspends law court directives pending further meetings

Following a meeting with Justice Minister Owen Bonnici yesterday, the UHM – Voice of the Workers has temporarily suspended directives affecting law court employees.

The directives were mainly aimed at deputy registrars and clerks, since their sectoral agreement has been in discussion for two years and no new agreement has yet been signed. In addition, calls for applications for clerks and registrars were issued, however only those with diplomas are eligible to apply. In addition to this, whereas normally such applications are issued under scale 10 of the civil servant pay-scale, it has now been issued under scale 11.

“After two years of discussions, workers are still left without an agreement and are waiting for an understanding to be reached,” UHM Employment Relations and Senior Manager Edwin Balzan previously told The Malta Independent.

The next meeting between the union and the court administration is set to occur before the end of this month.

Through the directives, deputy registrars working in the courts as well as the civil and criminal tribunals were told: not to enter fines will into the Lecam system and process them; not to sign the list of cases for the day; not to post the sitting list on any notice board and will not distribute the list to lawyers present during sittings; not to sign true copies of procedure documents. In addition, no replacements for deputy registrars absent, neither in the Registry nor in court would occur.

Deputy registrars working in the superior criminal and civil court registry, as well as those in the family court registry, would not issue oaths and will not sign for true copies of documents.

The directive also affected clerical staff, who would not answer phone calls, emails or mobile phones, would not file documents, would not scan Gozo court cases and would not take part in the sale of photo copy cards.