Department of Justice: briefings by Minister and Deputy Minister

SECURITY AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS SELECT COMMITTEE
12 June 2007
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: BRIEFINGS BY MINISTER AND DEPUTY MINISTER

Chairperson: Kgoshi L Mokoena (ANC, Limpopo)
 
Documents Handed Out
Speaking Notes for the Honourable Minister BS Mabandla, MP

Audio Recording of the Meeting

SUMMARY
The Minister and Deputy Minister of Justice addressed the Committee. The Minister pointed that the budget had been increased and that there was strong commitment from the leadership and staff within the Department to improve access to justice. The strategic key areas were identified as enhancing organisational efficiency and transformation of justice, state and society. The challenges facing the Department were clearly articulated together with the gains that had been made. She focused on the new digital systems that would enhance security of documents and systems towards the aim of improving service delivery.

The Deputy Minister explained the realities of prioritising budgetary areas. He explained that problems were inherited from the apartheid era and there was not an unlimited budget to deal with all the problems at once. Areas of concern were prioritised in the budget, such as providing proper courts as opposed to branch courts over buildings that courts were historically housed in. The administrative element of court operations was touched in on, with a summary of administrative practical solutions to office management.

Members asked questions on court facilities, the IT issues, infrastructure, and the situation with Department of Public Works. Several Members raised particular difficulties with courts in their provinces. Further questions addressed the appointment of and disciplinary control over magistrates, the issues of language, the long distances travelled to access justice in the Northern Cape, and the qualified audit report. Further questions that would be answered in writing related to the appointment of a Director of Public Prosecutions in Free State, the handling of small estates, victim compensation, sentencing procedures, budgetary allocations to the Legal Aid Board and the National Prosecuting Authority, harmonisation of salaries, the amounts spent on private security, cooperation with the Department of Correctional Services, the continuing high cost of justice which was not meeting the needs of the poor, legal aid, the need to promote the making of wills, and the Small Claims Court.

MINUTES
Address by the Minister of Justice
Ms Brigitte Mabandla, Minister for Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ and CD) outlined the allocation of the budget for the 2007/08 financial year. The budget had been increased to R8.541 billion. She presented the project allocations, which were broadly based around emphasising access to justice. The main areas of activity were explained as responding to challenges around infrastructure, such as Court Services, which were seen as a core competency for the Department. Another challenge was improving service delivery. The Minister explained that building blocks had been put in place to ensure that organisational efficiency was enhanced. These included the Digital Management System roll out, the Digital Court Recording project, the roll out of the E-scheduler solution and the Justice Deposit Account System. She highlighted completion of the criminal justice review, Bills on the transformation of the judiciary, the Legal Services Charter and the Khampepe Commission. She identified the problems caused by the delay in the Superior Courts Bill. She closed by touching on the gains and the challenges.

The Minister pointed out that infrastructure for the Department of Justice was a necessity. Currently the Department could not accommodate its entire staff and it was crucial that a justice precinct be built. The Department was working closely with the Treasury to set up offices of a long-term nature. Other functions within the Department of Justice were also affected such as the Justice College. Space was needed for the College. The shortage of space was linked to the use of mobile courts and police stations, and key issues also revolved around access for the disabled.

Links were made between infrastructure needs and professional capacity needs in the Department. It was planned that once the Judicial Institute was set up, it would provide judicial training, as a key strategy to transform the judiciary.

Budget increases were made for the Legal Aid Board and the National Prosecuting Authority. The Isondlo Campaign, electronic transfers for maintenance payments, appointment of the Chief Master, efficiency around small estates, information technology infrastructure, the digital management system roll out and the closer working relationships in the Cluster were presented as some of the successes that had been achieved.

The Minister noted that the context of the direction chosen by the Department was based on the national objectives. The Department was improving systems, based on research, to assess the access to justice for all South Africans and to set up structures that would transform the justice systems. The long-term aims were to ensure that justice systems and institutions would have the governance and capacity structures to provide service delivery.

DISCUSSION
The Chairperson ruled that budget questions would not be allowed as this had already been exhausted at the Department’s budget vote presentation.

Mr F Van Heerden (FF+, Free State) mentioned the R467 million for facilities at court, and mentioned that there was a lack of photocopy machines in the court libraries in Bloemfontein.

The Minister said that her Department would follow up the issue in the Bloemfontein library. She explained that it was simply an administrative issue that was sometimes affected by human error.

Mr Van Heerden asked about the IT structure. His experience had not been good. Electronic communications and IT made evidentiary matters a problem. He was pleased to hear that the State was working on this. He stated that encryption and decryption were lengthy processes. It was important that E-scheduler had improved.

The Minister responded on the larger issue of the management of information and the archiving of documents. A position had been created to ensure that documents were archived across the country. Space was also being secured to store documents safely.

Mr Johnny De Lange, Deputy Minister of Justice, said that there were a number of issues around infrastructure. The whole move to IT was one of the problems that the Department was having in all the areas of IT. Firstly there were many courts in this country that did not have infrastructure to be able to receive computers. For the first time an IT platform was being installed in each court in the country. The first thing that had to be done was create an IT platform so that the Department could at least put computers in there. IT compliance was not even possible in the majority of them but some had either been completed or would be completed in July. Once that had been completed the programmes could be put in. The E-scheduler came in at this stage. This was the management system for criminal cases. Hopefully the system would be extended to civil cases so both criminal and civil cases were on record. This also helped an enormous amount for dockets. Dockets were now scanned into the system so no dockets could be lost. The police had a programme called the e-docket system, which was allowing them to put dockets on computer. All the previous problems of the Department were related to the manual systems. The Department was trying to fix them. Maintenance was a simple example. Previously because bail and maintenance were recorded on paper this must be done at the court at which the order was given, and if a person moved, the staff would literally have to go to the original court to check the details. The system had been made simpler also by doing electronic payments. Of course there was some risk with this approach and the Department had to try and deal with the risk of direct payments by establishing a foolproof system, and managing the risk of corruption.

Mr M Mzizi (IFP, Gauteng) emphasised the link between court services and public works. State buildings were not up to scratch, and he complained of practical and administrative difficulties in the Department of Public Works (DPW). He asked for the relationship to be confirmed in view of the Minister’s assertion that there was a good relationship between the Departments. He noted that there were no asset registers of state buildings.

Mr L Fielding (DA, Northern Cape) pointed out that the oldest building in the Northern Cape was used for all legal activities and asked what was being done.

Mr Mzizi also asked about court buildings. He was glad that Matutuma had been mentioned because the Court there was housed in a school. He repeated that the relationship between courts and DPW was problematic. He said that in another Committee he was told that there would be 37 new courts. Nothing had been done about the court in Alberton.

Ms Mabandla said that there was a new dispensation in the Ministry. She was going to change this and the public works issue would be dealt with. There was a task group with Treasury, which would reconfigure the facility as a result of the recommendations from Treasury. There would be a difference by the end of the year.

Mr De Lange agreed that everyone did want to see decent buildings in their constituencies. However it had to be remembered that the country had a very poor legacy. This meant that the Minister had to make regular priority decisions each year. There was a limited amount of budget and the Department had to decide whether it would fix an existing courthouse in, for instance, Springbok, or build a new court in Mamelodi, where there was nothing. Few of the major black townships had courts. Branch courts did exist and these were courts that had a physical presence in a white area with people from that court coming to the branch every day, dealing with cases and leaving again. Staff living in Soweto would drive every morning to Johannesburg, clock in, and then drive back to work at the branch court in Soweto. It was that kind of inefficiency that led to time wasting. Obviously the first priority at this stage was periodical courts or branch courts, particularly where they were sustainable, in places like Soweto and Mamelodi. The Department believed these were sustainable and at the moment the only services those courts were providing in the black areas were criminal law. Maintenance or domestic violence issues were handled at the main court in Johannesburg. Civil services had to be moved to Soweto. It must be accepted that choices would need to be made and not everything could be done each year. The Committee would give input, but in reality decisions had to be made around priorities. The plans were there but obviously a budget had to support them.

Mr A Moseki (ANC, North West) approved of the follow ups being done being done on issues raised with the Minister. He gave the examples of the installation of burglar bars at Courts. He asked about boundaries and the alignment of justice. He asked whether a Boundaries Bill for the Department of Justice would not help with the problems and assist with the co-ordination referred to.

Mr J Le Roux (DA, Eastern Cape) asked why magistrates seemed to cause so much trouble, citing the recent disciplinary issues. He asked whether there was a problem with the appointment procedure.

Mr De Lange explained that the rationalisation of courts was a complex issue. In many ways the Superior Courts Bill had held up the issue. It was very difficult to rationalise the lower courts if the Department was not sure what was happening in the superior courts. Until there was a final decision on the number of high courts, and where they would be located, it would be nonsensical to start rationalising the lower courts. A major problem had arisen through the decision in 1993 to remove the Magistrates from the civil service. The principle of this was correct, but the decision was taken in a vacuum. The Magistrates Commission was formed, and the previous regulatory infrastructure no longer existed to deal with disciplinary issues. A complaint could still be laid about a Magistrate but the best the Department could do was to phone through to the Court and ask the Chief Magistrate if he could do something about it, as the Department itself could do nothing. Judges had no say over magistrates’ conduct, and even the Chief Magistrates could not tell the magistrates what to do. Governance was therefore a huge issue. A contentious issue in the Superior Courts Bill was the Department’s view that the Judiciary should take responsibility for the magistrates, and the Chief Justice should be given powers to control and dictate conditions such as what time they must commence work and so forth. Control meant structure of professional activity. There were many good magistrates and in places the system worked, but where there were poor magistrates it did not. It was most embarrassing when judicial officers were accused of breaking the law, but until accountability was introduced this would happen. There were problems with the appointing mechanisms. Provincial Committees made recommendations to the Magistrates Commission who would make the appointments, but there were not enough checks and balances in the system. The majority of magistrates were appointed from the ranks of former prosecutors, who had not had the background nor the training of presiding officers. The Department was trying to put in place a better system. The Minister had talked about the Justice College and the Judicial Institute plans because of the need to train magistrates. The delay in the legislation was causing problems.

Mr Moseki asked about the issue of language. He said that it was a problem if witnesses could not express themselves in their language of choice.

Ms Mabandla agreed that this issue was a serious and complex one. It was an issue that would be discussed at the Magistrates National Conference, which would be held in August.

Mr L Fielding asked about Springbok in the Northern Cape. Great distances of up to 70 kilometres had to be travelled to access justice, and often people would pay up to R80 for a taxi only to discover that maintenance money had been paid into their accounts, or not paid, or that the cases were not proceeding.

Ms Mabandla explained that special attention was being given to the Northern Cape and sparsely populated areas, and they featured prominently in the plans for upgrading of infrastructure and capacity.

Mr Fielding reiterated that public works were a major problem on the ground, and he considered it impractical that small repairs must be tendered for.

Mr S Shiceka (ANC) asked why an ideal cost was never attached to the backlog and the ideal staff complement was not fixed. He wondered if the budget would be sufficient if careful attention were paid to these problems.

He asked about the qualified audit report.

Mr De Lange said the qualified report from the Auditor General engaged with the problems. The biggest problem was that previously the Department had treated the trust account differently. When Mr Alan McKenzie took over as financial officer he convinced the Department that this was not correct and the system was changed. Initially the Auditor General had given an unqualified report. The problems relating to the trust account were historic.  Since the 1960s the Trust’s books had not been kept properly, and only in 1994 did the Department start to keep them in the correct way. The manual systems were problematic. The issues highlighted in the qualified audit report were dealt with, but the systems could not be corrected overnight. Even National Treasury was busy with the Department to try to correlate the systems properly for the trust accounts into which the Department received money for bail, fines and maintenance. He repeated that the Committee needed to engage with the Auditor General to discover exactly what had been the problem and what was being done.

A number of questions still remained, and both the Minister and Deputy Minister promised to respond to these, and any other further questions that Members might have later, in writing.

The questions not answered in the Committee because of shortage of time are listed below.

Mr Van Heerden noted that Bloemfontein still had no Director of Public Prosecutions and asked when this issue would be finalised. He emphasised that the Deputy Public Prosecutor was doing a fantastic job.

Mr Van Heerden asked if the dealing with small estates had really improved.

Mr Van Heerden wanted to know about victim compensation, how the project was proceeding, and whether it was a success or failure.

Mr Mzizi asked about the sentencing procedure, and noted that although prosecutors had the right to question sentences given by magistrates but they were seldom doing so. He cited a recent case in Limpopo. He gave the example of a recent case in Limpopo where a very light sentence had been imposed.

Mr Le Roux asked why it took a long time to settle obvious transgressions.

Mr T Manyosi (ANC, Eastern Cape) asked about the budgetary allocations to the Legal Aid Board and the National Prosecuting Authority and asked if the allocation address the parity issue of salaries for their practitioners. He pointed out that the lower salaries had resulted in many of their lawyers leaving for better conditions elsewhere.

Mr Manyosi asked about the handling of estates, particularly in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape. The Master of the High Court in Umtata had recently written to the Minister to complain about the lack of smooth processes.

Mr D A Worth (DA, Free State) asked about an article in today’s newspaper that stated that the Department had spent R137 million on private security.  This was one of the highest in various Departments. The Committee had recently questioned the National Commissioner whether there would be closer cooperation with private security firms and he reiterated that the differences between the two would remain. Most of the Departments of Justice in other countries were protected by the police. He asked about the Minister’s view, and mentioned that from his point of view he would rather have police on the beat than guarding buildings.

Mr Worth asked if the Magistrates Commission in Pretoria would be getting a new building in the drive to improve infrastructure. It seemed that there was greater concentration at the moment on Justice College.

Mr N Mack (ANC, Western Cape) asked about rural issues and the poor. He also wanted to hear more about bail and alternative sentencing. He asked how did the Department of Justice cooperate with the Department of Correctional Services. He noted that there were large numbers of people awaiting trial and asked how many could possibly be dealt with through alternative sentencing.

Mr Mack questioned the high cost of justice and this bias against the poor. The lack of financial resources would determine whether an appeal would be lodged. Some people were just pleading guilty because of high costs. He believed that those with money could drag a case for a long time.

Mr Mack asked about legal aid and the reasons why people thought that it offered inferior representation, asking if it was true that junior attorneys would be sent to represent people, and if so, what could be done about this.

Mr Fielding asked why the Legal Board only dealt with criminal cases and not civil cases. This caused immense problems for women in particular, as if they did not have adequate resources they would simply not pursue their cases.

Mr Shiceka asked about wills, and noted that it was becoming increasingly necessary, with the growth in the middle classes, to persuade people of the necessity of making a will and disposing properly of their assets.

Mr Shiceka asked if the small claims court was helping matters, and if it required transformation.

Ms Mabandla promised to response to these questions in writing. She noted that more communication was needed between the Committee and the Ministry.

The meeting was adjourned.