‘Why Didn’t You Leave?’: Magistrate’s Question Ignites Malta-Wide Push for Domestic-Violence Training in Courts

Magistrate’s “Why Didn’t You Leave?” Sparks National Outcry
Lobby groups demand compulsory domestic-violence training for every judge and magistrate on the island

Valletta – A single courtroom question—“But why didn’t you just leave him?”—has detonated a national debate on how Malta’s judiciary handles domestic-violence survivors.

The remark, uttered last week by a magistrate during bail proceedings in the Valletta district court, was directed at a 27-year-old mother of two who had been hospitalised after her partner allegedly broke her cheekbone and locked her in an Żabbar flat. When the woman hesitated while recounting the beatings, the magistrate interrupted: “You stayed for five years. Help me understand why.”

Audio of the exchange, leaked to Lovin Malta on Monday, spread across WhatsApp groups before breakfast. By lunchtime, protest memes showing the magistrate’s face super-imposed on 1950s housewife adverts were plastered over Facebook. By sunset, the Malta Women’s Lobby (MWL), the Commission on Gender-Based Violence and the Church’s Commission for the Family had issued a joint statement calling for “immediate, compulsory and recurring” training on the dynamics of domestic abuse for every member of the bench.

“This is not about one rogue comment,” MWL coordinator Dr Claudine Mangion told Hot Malta outside the law courts on Tuesday, clutching a stack of 4,700 printed signatures. “It is about a system that still sees victims as complicit. If the person who decides whether your aggressor walks free does not understand trauma bonding, economic blackmail or the 11-second rule* then justice is a lottery.”
(*A 2018 US study showing the average victim attempts to leave seven times before succeeding.)

Malta’s courts have form. In 2021 another magistrate reduced a man’s sentence for grievous bodily harm after noting the wife “provoked” him by texting male colleagues. The same year, a judge granted a perpetrator custody because the mother had “exposed” the children to violence by reporting it. The European Women’s Lobby ranks Malta 23rd out of 27 EU states for legal response to gender-based violence.

Yet the island also boasts some of Europe’s most progressive legislation: the 2018 Domestic Violence Act introduced risk-assessment tools, emergency barring orders and the right to remain in the family home. “Our problem is implementation, not ink on paper,” says lawyer and former police inspector Dr Maria Pace. “Police still tell women ‘go home and talk it out’. Court-appointed psychologists still write reports asking whether the victim was ‘a good cook’. We need cultural rewiring, starting with whoever sits on the bench.”

The numbers are stark. According to the police domestic-violence unit, 1,346 new cases were opened last year—up 38 % since 2019. Shelters run by the Foundation for Social Welfare Services turned away 212 women and 143 children for lack of space. Thirty-six per cent of Maltese women over 15 have experienced physical or sexual violence, EU Agency for Fundamental Rights data show, yet only 7 % report it.

In tight-knit villages where “kullħadd jaf lil kulħadd” (everyone knows everyone), the fear of shame remains lethal. “My mother still calls it ‘ħmieg tad-dar’, dirty laundry,” says 41-year-old Sliema resident Rachel* who left an abusive marriage in 2020. “When I heard the magistrate’s question I wasn’t shocked. I heard my aunt, my neighbour, my confessor. The court is a mirror of society.”

The Chief Justice has promised an internal review, but activists want more. They are demanding a Memorandum of Understanding between the Commission on Gender-Based Violence and the Judicial Studies Committee to roll out a 20-hour accredited course covering neurobiology of trauma, coercive control and cultural stereotypes. Failure to complete it would trigger the same sanction as missing continuing legal education on money-laundering—suspension from bench duties.

Justice Minister Jonathan Attard told parliament on Wednesday he is “open to constructive proposals” but warned against “politicising the judiciary”. Meanwhile, opposition MPs have tabled an amendment to the Court Act making such training mandatory, with Nationalist MP Julie Zahra arguing: “Impartiality does not mean ignorance.”

Back in Żabbar, the woman at the centre of the storm is rebuilding. Her ex-partner’s bail was revoked after the Attorney General appealed, citing the magistrate’s “misplaced emphasis”. She has found a place at Dar Merħba Bik, the Church-run shelter in Għaxaq, and started free ICT lessons funded by the EU Social Fund. “I want to code, not cry,” she texted Hot Malta. “But I also want the next woman who stands up there to be heard, not blamed.”

The courtroom that once echoed with “why didn’t you leave?” may yet become the classroom that teaches Malta how to ask, instead, “what stopped you from leaving, and how can we remove that obstacle?” For a nation that prides itself on family values, the answer will define what kind of family we become.