The department of justice and constitutional development is hoping to clear the heap of Road Accident Fund cases congesting the Johannesburg high court roll to free up judges as the appointment of new judges could not be done immediately due to budget constraints.
Newly appointed minister of justice and constitutional development Thembisile Simelane briefed the media on issues of public interest in the current seventh administration under her department.
One of the issues facing the Gauteng Division of the High Court was a backlog of Road Accident Fund cases, which have been set to be heard over the next few years, creating a backlog in cases to be heard, especially by the Johannesburg high court.
In a bulletin ln July 26, Gauteng deputy judge president Ronald Sutherland said there was a crisis of “unacceptably” long lead times, which continued to increase. Sutherland said the general civil trial roll for RAF cases reached an overwhelming four years and nine months lead time.
One reason for the backlog is that too many litigation attorneys were not confident in using mediation to settle disputes.
“I regret that I have no immediate concrete solution to offer,” he said.
The department’s director-general advocate Doc Mashabane confirmed that RAF cases created a problem for the court roll, particularly in Gauteng.
“There are measures that will be put in place and we think that some of those challenges relating to RAF, if they are addressed, will free a lot of judges to do normal [court] rolls.
“There is a rationalisation committee ... led by former deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke that is looking at all the superior courts' establishments with a view of making recommendations. I think they had their last meeting last week and they will finalise their report to the minister next week to give us a sense in terms of the volume of court matters of what is required to address the challenges. The minister mentioned recently that both she and the deputy minister met with the judge president and the deputy judge president of the Gauteng Division of the High Court,” said Mashabane.
Asked by TimesLIVE Premium at the briefing on Friday whether there were plans to appoint new judges to alleviate the backlog at the Johannesburg high court, Mashabane admitted there was insufficient budget even to appoint researchers for judges.
“Yes, there is a shortage of researchers. In an ideal world, you want every judge to have a researcher, but currently, where we have researchers, they end up assisting three to five judges. The reality is the budget. The impact of the budget on all of us — we may have the desire, even regional court magistrates and judge presidents in fact do need researchers, but the challenge is resources, and we all know budget is a challenge for the entire government,” he said.
The budget constraint also overflowed to limited infrastructure maintenance of the courts, as the developing of court infrastructure and construction of courts was the responsibility of the department of public works.
Simelane said of the allocated budget to the department, R60m is used to maintain all of the courts.
She said it was up to the department of public works to deal with major infrastructure to repair the precinct of the Johannesburg high court as it was not safe and left magistrates and judges exposed to dangers.
There are a number of cases where the magistrates are attacked in the [court] while hearing a case, or attacked even at the Johannesburg high court, or judges being intimidated and held at gunpoint
— Justice minister Thembisile Simelane
“It’s not even safe. I met with the Magistrates Commission and there are a number of cases where the magistrates are attacked in the [court] while hearing a case, or attacked even at the Johannesburg high court, or judges being intimidated and held at gunpoint ... The security and infrastructure really need a huge revamp, which is a responsibility that the department does not sit with.
“But, we budgeted R60m for the minor repairs, including boreholes and generators, so that courts are able to run.”
However, through the work of the Special Tribunal into corruption and irregular awarding of contracts, the Tribunal managed to recover an estimated R15bn of state funds lost to corruption.
She said the presidency will soon announce the names of the Special Tribunal judges to ensure that the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has the judicial support required to take on matters of corruption and irregular awarding of tenders.
Despite having recovered billions in state money, SIU head advocate Andy Mothibi said the money was not channelled back to the Tribunal to aid its work, but instead to the state institution “which faced the corrupt financial loss”.
“Once the money is [recovered], it is then deposited into the SIU trust account and the money, ultimately, is returned to the state institution — it could be a national department, a state-owned entity, a provincial department or a municipality. When those monies are paid back to the state institutions, we then inform the National Treasury for [it] to play an oversight to ensure those monies are used for the purposes they were intended for.
Court infrastructure upgrades still ongoing, Simelane confirms
Several courts were still under construction in the province including the R94m Mamelodi magistrate's court project which started in 2009 and is expected to be completed by 2016. However, the large construction was halted due to construction mafia attempting to extort a share of the project.
Simelane said the Mamelodi court project was at the “roof level” and a contractor would be appointed towards the end of September to complete the work.
In recent weeks, inspection visits were conducted at the construction of the Soshanguve magistrate's court. The public works department also inspected the rehabilitation of the Durban magistrate's court.
Moseneke’s rationalisation committee also recommended more than a year ago that the Eastern Cape High Court in Makhanda be moved to Bhisho, which sparked an outrage and debate from local legal practitioners, the municipality, community and even the DA.
Asked when Moseneke’s recommendation for the relocation will be implemented, Simelane said the matter was still in the consultation phase and not yet concluded.
“The process is not yet concluded and of course, one must note that there is a very strong element from the community opposing the relocation of the court. The committee is still ... receiving inputs but we noted, as the department, the outcome and the consultation process that has started.
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