'We're doing our best to cut the backlog'

The Department of Justice said it viewed criminal case backlogs seriously and was doing its best to reduce them.

In a statement to the Sunday Times, it said one million cases a year went through the courts and the backlog of 38014 cases amounted to only 3.8% of the total.

The department said its special backlog courts - 56 regional and 22 district courts that were operating at the end of June - could be described as successful.

These courts had between November 2006 and June this year handled a total of 44129 cases on the regional and district court rolls: 29452 finalised cases, 13169 cases that were withdrawn and 1508 that were transferred.

A document produced by the department has identified key challenges contributing to case backlogs:

• A substantial increase in the workload of magistrates' civil courts, family courts and high courts; and
• A shortage of courts and outdated court infrastructure.

Meanwhile, recently appointed Chief Justice Moegeng Moegeng said the main reason for backlogs was "weak" case-flow management structures and the failure to regularly check the pace at which litigation is proceeding in each court.

"We must also check on our work ethic and the number of hours we all spend working in court," Chief Justice Moegeng said.

"I think it's one of the areas that we must look at very, very critically."

Chief Justice Moegeng said the judiciary and the Judicial Service Commission needed to identify reasons behind the problem of delayed judgments.

He said he had come across some people who were magistrates or lecturers before they were appointed to the high court bench.

"If you don't train them properly in the area of judgment writing, you are going to frustrate them," he said.

"The result is that most of the judgments will take far too long before they are written because some of the judges do not really understand what it requires to produce a decent judgment befitting a high court judge."