hearings on the medium term budget policy

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

HEARINGS ON THE MEDIUM TERM BUDGET POLICY

OVERVIEW OF PROJECTS AND

ACTIVITIES IMPACTING

ON THE PROTECTION SERVICES SECTOR AND IN

PARTICULAR THE IJS


OUTLINE

This briefing will touch on the following initiatives within the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development in relation to improved court administration:

Decentralization of court support Case Flow Management IJS Court Centres Management Information System for Courts Additional Courts and Saturday Courts Case readiness of cases Court Process Project Diversion Sexual Offences Courts


DECENTRALIZATION OF COURT SUPPORT

BACKGROUND The decentralization of court support is one of

the projects within the USAID-supported Criminal Justice Strengthening Program (CJSP)

The aim of the CJSP is to achieve “a more effective and accessible criminal justice system”

Improving court support is central to achieving this aim


HOW WILL DECENTRALIZATIONIMPROVE EFFICIENCY?

Decentralization will shorten the gap between the point where support is required, namely the courts, and the service delivery mechanism, i.e. the Shared Service Centre

Currently, courts are far removed from their support mechanism – the regional offices

By introducing the Shared Service Centre concept in a “hub” design, the benefits of consistency of standards and controls can be achieved

This is illustrated below:


Head Office

Shared Services

Hub Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Hub Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Hub Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

CourtCourt

Hub Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Court

Shared Services Client

Shared Services Component


WHAT IS THE PROGRESSTO DATE?

PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Manto Management were commissioned to examine the viability of the Shared Services approach in the Court Services environment

An Operating Model, taking the current legacy systems within the Department into account, was developed and delivered during March 2002

The tender procedure was again followed to proceed with the design and implementation phase of the project


Progress (continued)

A tender was awarded in August 2002 to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers consortium and the project is currently in the detailed design phase

The full decentralization of court services will be implemented in phases

The court system in KwaZulu-Natal will be clustered into hubs and a Shared Service Centre will established at each hub by the end of May 2003


Progress (continued)

Roll out to the other provinces will follow after an assessment and evaluation of the KwaZulu-Natal pilot has been carried out


INTEGRATED CASE FLOW MANAGEMENT

BACKGROUND This project was launched in response to the

need to deal proactively with the huge backlog of both civil and criminal cases in our courts

In the High Courts, for example, the waiting period in criminal cases is about twenty months, and in civil matters, about twelve months


BACKGROUND Continued

From observing and studying some of the world’s most efficient court systems, such as in Singapore, the Department concluded that the greatest impact on the backlog of cases would be felt by introducing an Integrated Case Flow Management system in the court environment

The project is part of the Criminal Justice Strengthening Program and will contribute to the Program’s objective of streamlining court services to provide modern and efficient administration of justice


WHAT IS CASE FLOW MANAGEMENT?

In South Africa, the litigants (prosecutors and attorneys) determine the pace of the litigation process

Case Flow Management aims to proactively manage cases by taking control of the pace of litigation

Every case needs to be carefully monitored and its progress managed until disposal by settlement or trial


Continued

Proactive management includes instituting a pre-trial system to clear cases that do not need to go to trial

Best practice has indicated that if some measure is introduced before a hearing, such as a pre-trial, litigants are more willing to consider the strengths and weaknesses of their case, and settle out of court, thus saving valuable court time


WHO WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR CASE FLOW MANAGEMENT?

It is envisaged that this proactive management of cases will become the task of registrars (High Courts) and clerks of the court (lower courts)

They need to be well-trained and qualified, with excellent leadership skills and have the ability to act as judicial officers


PROGRESS TO DATE

The Department commissioned an American court management expert, George Gish, to undertake a thorough investigation of the South African situation. This was done during April 2002

He developed and submitted an extensive manual proposing a Case Flow Management system for South Africa


PROGRESS Continued

The manual formed the topic of a week-long consultative conference with all relevant stakeholders from 20 to 25 October 2002

Further activities of the project will be developed following the outcome of the conference


IJS COURT CENTRES

BACKGROUND The IJS Court Centre project aims to improve

court and case management, thereby reducing case cycle time

It is a joint initiative between the Department, BAC and the National Prosecuting Authority

The project supports two of the objectives of the IJS namely, swift and efficient justice


WHAT IS AN IJS COURT CENTRE?

While the Court Process Project is the medium to long-term solution to case management, the Department considers the Court Centre project to be its flagship short-term intervention for improving court and case management

It provides the court with a simple, user friendly computer program – the Case Roll Management System – together with a different way of organizing the flow of work in the court environment


HOW DOES IT OPERATE?

The project brings together all the criminal justice role players in one physical environment at the court and uses teamwork and best practices to ensure that cases are better prepared for trial, and that case scheduling and case tracking takes place


PROGRESS TO DATE

IJS Court Centres have been established at 26 courts throughout the country

A detailed evaluation was conducted during July 2002 which revealed that the project is contributing to improving court efficiency

Statistics from each Centre are gathered and monitored on a monthly basis


PROJECT OUTCOMES

A number of performance measures are monitored, such as average court hours and number of cases disposed of

The most positive impact has been on case preparation cycle time, which has been reduced, on average, from 143 days at the start of the project to 85 days as at the end of August 2002

This can be seen in the following graph:


AVERAGE CASE PREPARATION CYCLE TIME

143

88 8792

8586

0

40

80

120

160


WAY FOWARD

An inter-departmental governance structure in the form of a Project Steering Committee is in the process of being established. Letters have been sent to cluster DGs in this regard

The reason for such a structure is that assistance is needed at an IJS national level to address blockages at local level that prevent continued performance improvement


COURT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM

The Department is acutely aware of the need for accurate and useful management information on court activities to empower court managers to proactively manage their resources

Management information is also needed to develop performance targets and to monitor the attainment of these targets


HOW TO ADDRESS THIS NEED

The solution is to harness the large volumes of information on many aspects of the court environment that is available, but scattered throughout the various sectors of the justice environment

The Department, in partnership with BAC, requested the CSIR to develop a Management Information System for courts


WHAT IS THE COURT M I S ?

The Court MIS is a user-friendly, web-based computer program that captures a range of information about each court in one database

It covers aspects such as the human resource establishment, the physical infrastructure and the productivity of the court


Continued

The information is enhanced by the production of performance reports, that analyze the available information and compares the productivity of courts in a cluster. This facilitates the development of court performance bench marks

The Court MIS has been piloted on a demonstration basis using all the courts in the Southern Gauteng cluster


WAY FORWARD

The CSIR has agreed to expand the project to include all the courts in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal (to coincide with the decentralization project) and the courts with IJS Court Centres

We believe that by empowering managers to improve the utilization of court resources we will be supporting the objectives of the IJS Program

In the long term the Court Process Project will also include fully automated management information tools


SATURDAY / ADDITIONAL COURT PROJECT

Saturday and Additional courts have been introduced as a temporary measure to reduce the number of cases on the court roll

This has had considerable success

The main objective in the long run, however, is to increase the productivity of courts and to clear the backlogs


CASE READINESS POLICY

The NDPP has formulated policy which specifies more clearly the criteria applicable for judging if a case is fit for trial.

This will prevent the court rolls from being clogged up by cases that are not ready for trial.

This policy has led to an increase in the number of cases withdrawn.


COURT PROCESS PROJECT

This entails an integrated automated case management system that will be a “world first” when completed.

Two sites are involved, Johannesburg and Durban. The development of the civil solution – that will initially be used in simple civil cases, has been completed.

This project will lead to the elimination of the use of hard copies as all case documents from beginning to end.


DIVERSION

A Diversion programme provides an alternative sentence for juvenile offenders. This includes more rehabilitative aspects compared to prisons

In terms of the Child Justice Bill, 2002, that was tabled in Parliament earlier this year, extensive provision is made for diversion programmes

During 2001 more than 15 000 children were diverted in the courts country-wide


SEXUAL OFFENCES COURTS

The Department and the NPA will continue to rollout sexual offences courts and several are in process of being launched country wide in order to improve the situation of victims in this regard.

There is also continuous improvement to the infrastructure of courts in order to make them more child-friendly and to provide assistance to child witnesses through CCTV/ separate waiting rooms / demonstration toys / intermediaries


IN CONCLUSION

The Department is fully committed to improve service delivery to the public of South Africa through improved court administration

hearings on the medium term budget policy

Documents

court services environmentan

court administration

phasesthe court system

efficient court systems

shared services approach

criminal cases

shared service centrecurrently

support mechanism