Barry Streek
The government’s high-profile campaign to speed up court proceedings and cut the backlog has faltered as the number of unheard criminal cases in district and regional courts increased over the past 12 months.
There are now 160102 unheard criminal cases, up from 132126 an increase of 21% in one year.
In the high courts, however, there was a reduction in the backlog from 960 cases in February last year to 938 cases in November.
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Penuell Maduna revealed in Parliament that there were 111948 outstanding rolls in the district courts in November last year, compared to 96 656 in November 1999, and 48 154 in the regional courts, compared to 35470 the previous year.
His figures, given in reply to a question tabled by the Democratic Alliance’s Tertius Delport, show that the total backlog in the district and regional courts increased.
The rise in the backlog is despite the launch early last year of the Department of Justice’s “millennium 10-point plan” to bring about more efficient administration of justice in South Africa.
The plan, launched by Maduna, called for the improvement of court infrastructure.
It stated: “In order to provide targeted service levels the department will be required to increase the number of courts and upgrade and make the existing facilities more secure, accessible and friendly. This programme will improve service delivery via a more effective redistribution of facilities that will ensure greater access to justice to a wider range of people.”
In his reply, Maduna said the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Bulelani Ngcuka, who also launched a campaign to reduce the backlog in the courts shortly after he was appointed to the post in 1998, had indicated that the increase in the rolls in the lower courts was attributable to a number of factors, many of which fell outside his “influence sphere”.
Maduna said he regarded a number of factors as important.
“There is an urgent need to establish additional courts, particularly regional courts. The expansion of courts to keep up with the growth in population as well as changing crime patterns was not done for several years.”
Ngcuka also said: “Due to the large turnover in prosecutorial staff and the high number of experienced people resigning the experience levels of the prosecutors are very low. This resulted in many wasted hours due to poor roll planning. This is a skill that comes with experience.”
The levels of training for prosecutors were also unsatisfactory due to budgetary constraints.
“Poor working conditions and a disparity between the salary scale of prosecutors and magistrates causes demoralisation of prosecutors. Many prosecutors apply for and go to the judiciary because of this disparity. The National Prosecuting Authority loses on average approximately 100 of the most experienced prosecutors a year to the magistracy.”
Ngcuka said a work study evaluation of the prosecution service by the Department of Justice, which was completed “several years ago”, had recommended the creation of approximately 300 posts but these had not been created yet.
Last year major problems were experienced with the availability of legal representatives for accused people and the problems with the Legal Aid Board compounded the problem, but “fortunately this issue seems to be resolved at this stage.
“The following comment is not true for the entire country, but in a number of areas poor cooperation between prosecutors and the South African Police Service as well as sub-standard investigation of cases by the SAPS cause unnecessary delays and postponements.
“The following comment is also not true for the entire country, but in several areas problems are experienced with prisoners arriving late at court or having to return to prison early, causing many court hours to be lost.”