Order in the court: Judges go to school

21 April 2016 - 02:43 By Leonie Wagner and Bianca Capazorio

The Office of the Chief Justice wants to almost double its training budget in the next two years - pushing the amount spent from R34-million to R60-million by 2018. Yesterday Justice Minister Michael Masutha announced that the office would be working with a budget of R1.785-billion in this financial year - with R920-million allocated to remuneration and benefits for judges and the remaining R864-million for operational costs.A portion of the R864-million will go towards training and recruiting judicial officers. The Office of the Chief Justice's 2016-2017 annual performance plan aims to conduct 225 training courses for judicial officers over the next three years.The training will include courses on the Domestic Violence Act, the Maintenance Act and the Immigration Act.Experts have welcomed the department's move, saying there was a need for standardised training, especially in legal matters involving children.Shaheda Omar of the Teddy Bear Clinic for abused children in Johannesburg said there were "huge gaps" in the areas of domestic violence and maintenance."This is a sore point. Some judicial officials lack sensitivity in communicating with victims of domestic violence, including children. There is a huge gap there and this needs to be addressed in the training," Omar said.Office of the Chief Justice spokesman Nathi Mncube said the courses were developed after a broad consultative process with the judges and magistrates. He added that the acts mentioned in the report were examples and did not necessarily denote priority.Researcher and gender activist Lisa Vetten of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Development welcomed the promotion of standardised training. Vetten said training on sexual offences was especially necessary as there were still "too many cases where judges suggest [rape] is not serious if the victim has recovered".The report also highlights the ripple effect of the increase in crime, which has increased the workload of judicial officers. The Office of the Chief Justice identified the need for more judicial officers and infrastructure - but did not say how many magistrates and judges needed to be hired.Masutha yesterday told parliament that there would not be enough funding to get the Mpumalanga High Court fully functional once its construction has been completed...

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