By Nomfundo Manyathi-Jele
The Office of the Chief Justice held a workshop on judicial case-flow management in Kempton Park in March. The main aim of the workshop was to review progress to date following the implementation of the judicial case-flow management pilot project in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape and the North West in October 2012.
The judicial case-flow management pilot sites were initiated as a direct response to on-going criticisms related to excessive delays in the finalisation of cases that were experienced in courts around the country.
The workshop was attended by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, the Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Khayelihle Mthiyane, Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal Steven Majiedt, Judge Presidents of the Gauteng High Court Dunstan Mlambo, the North West Monica Leeuw and of the Northern Cape Frans Kgomo and the Acting Judge President of the Free State, Nathan Erasmus.
Also in attendance were Deputy JudgesPresident of the North and South Gauteng High Court, KwaZulu-Natal, Western Cape, the Labour Court, as well as senior judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal, the Labour Appeal Court, the Land Claims Court and judges from each division who are members of the Judicial Case-Flow Management Committee.
In a press release, judiciary spokesperson and media relations director at the Private Office of the Chief Justice, Lulama Luti, said that Chief Justice Mogoeng urged members of the judicial case-flow management committee to strongly consider cascading the successes gleaned in the High Court to the magistrates courts around the country, particularly because s 8 of the Superior Courts Act 10 of 2013 puts the responsibility of the coordination of judicial functions of the magistrate’s courts on the shoulders of the Judges President.
Judicial case management makes it the duty of a judicial officer to intervene as early as possible in the management of a case, thus taking the control of the pace of litigation out the hands of the parties and their legal representatives.
The press release stated that the workshop revealed that judicial case management had worked so well that only when a matter has been certified trial-ready by a judge, is a trial date allocated in the Western Cape. ‘Currently, a trial date is allocated within three months of the certification by a judge, where before the commencement of the pilot project, it could take up to two years from the date of allocation to the hearing of the matter,’ Ms Luti stated in the press release.
Among the successes also noted during the workshop was the reduction in the waiting time to obtain a trial date. Since the commencement of the project, in the KwaZulu-Natal division of the High Court, the waiting time for trial dates has been reduced from 12 months to six to eight months in Durban and from two to three years to eight to 12 months in Pietermaritzburg.
‘Successes were also recorded in the North West where criminal cases are finalised within six months of enrolment in the High Court. Within 14 days of a matter being transferred from the magistrates court to the High Court, it is monitored closely to register it in the broader case-flow process to enable its finalisation accordingly,’ stated Ms Luti.
‘In my court we do not postpone matters indefinitely, we postpone matters to definite dates and as a result all matters on our rolls have been allocated trial dates until September 2014. Currently, we do not have requests for trial dates in October and beyond,’ said North West Judge President Leeuw.
Challenges
Challenges identified at the workshop included:
According to Ms Luti, recommendations of the workshop included that court personnel involved in the project be trained in the procedures and processes of case-flow management and that an electronic case management system be developed, to include e-filing and to assist with the tracking and monitoring of cases.
The press release states that the chairperson of the national judicial case management and Supreme Court of Appeal Deputy President Mthiyane said that the committee had investigated various systems in other jurisdictions, which were successfully implementing case-flow management. He added that South Africa was now implementing some of the best practices gleaned from those jurisdictions, which include the United States, United Kingdom, Norway and Malaysia.
Nomfundo Manyathi-Jele, nomfundo@derebus.org.za
This article was first published in De Rebus in 2014 (May) DR 10.
