Justice is blind – and she’s close to broke, as a cash-flow crisis cripples the courts Glenda Daniels and Khadija Magardie The Johannesburg High Court has run out of money to pay for fax paper and has enough cash for just one month’s worth of judges’ telephone bills, it emerged this week. Lawyers told the Mail & Guardian they were informed not to fax details of their cases through to the court officials who compile the court roll. The lawyers said they had been informed that the court had run out of money for fax paper, and had only just enough money for one more month of paying judges’ telephone bills. A sharp budget cut is also hitting the Pretoria High Court and the Magistrates’ courts in Gauteng. It is understood that while the first casualties at the Johannesburg High Court are fax paper and phone bills, other essential items will soon be under threat. The high court is now using a borrowed fax machine. Deputy Judge President Monas Flemming said that he could not comment on the cuts because negotiations with government were under way. Ministry of Justice representative Paul Setsetse confirmed that the department was aware of the high courts’ request for more resources. However, he said: “Both the high courts and the magistrates’ courts have to tighten their belts regarding telephones, fax paper and photocopying until the next financial year. There was a task team appointed to investigate the issue of resources, which included the two registrars from the high courts, but we could not meet their expenditure requirements.” Nazeer Cassim, chair of the Johannesburg Bar Council, said the lack of resources was crippling the smooth functioning of the high court. “There is no excuse for not having fax paper or money for it, because there is supposed to be a budget for this. It is a problem of indifference and a failure to appreciate that for an institution to work you can’t demotivate people – this is what leads to the collapse of a system,” he said. Cassim said that it was a case of “either abuse or people not doing their work”. One judge said that the alarming situation meant the time-honoured principle that the civic administration of justice pays for itself is being flouted. In other words, the courts are supposed to get access to the money generated from revenue stamps and transfer duties. Another judge pointed out that the fees that come in through revenues and transfers are not nearly adequate. If one took, for example, 35E000 cases at R80 a case, it would bring in about R2,5-million, but the budget for last year was five times this amount. One Johannesburg advocate said the administration of high courts “was in a shambles. There have been countless times when files have gone missing, or matters have not been set down on a roll. The quality of administration has deteriorated but the magistrates’ courts are even worse. Just today I appeared before a magistrate who a few months ago was a clerk.” A representative in the Office of the Judge President of the High Court, Bernard Ngoepe, said the registrar of the court would be the most appropriate person to comment on the crisis. However, the registrar was on sick leave and could not be reached. The cuts at the country’s premier high court come despite increases in the budget accorded the national Department of Justice. In the latest budget, the department received almost R3-billion – up from last year’s R2,7- billion. A significant portion of this was earmarked for the effective administration of the country’s courts. The resources appear to have been rerouted, with senior courts like Johannesburg’s High Court, which deals with a high volume of cases, feeling the pinch. Insiders have blamed the apparent financial chaos within the department on a disastrous financial decentralisation policy.
The lack of a centrally controlled and monitored financial services structure, and no specific chief financial officer, has been cited as a reason for high levels of unauthorised expenditure. In the past financial year, it was reported that the department’s unauthorised expenditure represented more than 50% of the total of all national departments. The cash-strapped Legal Aid Board, which is meant to offer legal assistance to the poor, is virtually insolvent and has been rocked by a series of blows – the latest being the refusal by advocates to undertake new work for the board, with others withdrawing from cases because often there is no money to pay them. Further, they are being paid less than initially agreed to. The state of affairs within the board has implications for access to justice, particularly for those who cannot afford legal representation. In addition, prosecutors in the public sector have set out a litany of grievances, which they say makes their employment increasingly intolerable. The state has stopped overtime pay, prompting many prosecutors to refuse to work extra hours. Additionally, many prosecutors are shunning work in the public sector in favour of a more lucrative life in the private sector. This has also extended itself to the judiciary. The need to transform the racial and gender composition of the judiciary has been hampered by the fact that most senior advocates would rather remain at the Bar and earn a higher salary than the lower judge’s salary, long working hours and often bad conditions.
Beyond indicating that discussions are under way, there has been little attempt by the department to improve the conditions judges work under, especially their salaries, to attract more seasoned, especially black advocates to the Bench.