Barry Streek Far-ranging and costly steps have been taken by the government to improve South Africa’s crimi-nal justice system. They include the introduction of a computerised system to link police stations, prisons and courts; the construction and upgrading of magistrates’ courts; and reforms of the courts to make them user-friendly. “The reason is to bring access to justice,” said Deputy Minister of Justice Cheryl Gillwald.
This week Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna and Minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete announced a R35-million pilot Court Process Project. Gillwald said the reforms would introduce greater efficiency to the justice system as well as reducing the time taken to process criminal cases. The Court Process Project involves the departments of justice, security and safety, correctional services and social development. Offenders will be photographed digitally and their fingerprints taken at every stage of the criminal justice process. In prisons “an inmate tracking system” is to be introduced in which awaiting-trial prisoners will be fitted with a transponder which will transmit information to a database recording movements in or out of prison. Maduna said “significant progress” had been made since 1996 in making the courts more user-friendly, with 32 courtrooms being provided with one-way glass partitioning and 178 court rooms with closed-circuit television systems to enable children to testify in crimes involving child abuse. Community safety centres were being built in five rural areas while one, at Thembalethu, had already been completed. Maduna said five family courts had been established to deal with family law disputes and 17 sexual offences courts had been established. New court buildings and additions to existing court buildings had been completed at 40 centres since 1996. Gillwald said the first priority of the project was to cover 20% of the courts where 80% of criminal cases were held and then to extend it to the rest of the country.