Judges explain their grievances

A total of 32 of the 45 Balearic judges, called to a meeting by the doyen of local judges, Pedro Barceló, have drawn up a statement of their conclusions about the problems affecting the justice system in the Balearics. This will be presented to the General Council within the next few days. They are calling for more time in which to draw up sentences and an increase in staff to speed up the solving of cases. There is a backlog of between 20'000 and 30'000 cases, attributed to lack of resources. Barceló said yesterday that “the man in the street has the impression that justice is neither swift nor effective, and we judges know that we are overburdened with work and we lack serenity to pass sentence and time to study various matters.” He said that judges had to pass 600 sentences a year but on many occasions it was impossible to do this as there are always cases which are more complex than others.