05 Feb 2015

The Administration of Justice (AOJ) has vowed to adopt remedial and counteractive stance on the conduct of deputy sheriffs, whom the public has described as a law unto themselves.

Chief Justice Mr Maruping Dibotelo said on Tuesday February 3 that his office was working tirelessly to address anger, agitation and growing unhappiness of the public on the conduct of deputy sheriffs.

Justice Dibotelo said he would address the issue through robust reforms programme that would include amongst others, the establishment of a separate unit to exclusively address deputy sheriffs’ related issues, an increase of deputy sheriffs current security bond from P20 000 to P100 000 and a requirement for opening and maintaining Trust account because of the fiduciary relationship with their clients.

Other reforms, he said, are the introduction of service contracts that would govern amongst others, their terms and conditions of service as well as the introduction of distinct identity cards which would reduce incidents of those impersonating deputy sheriffs to defraud unsuspecting members of the public. 

On the issue of forum shopping, he indicated that the Rules of the High Court would be amended to reduce if not eliminate altogether incidents of this nature. 

He said in order to curb and discourage the practice, he amended the Rules of the High Court through Statutory Instrument No. 22 of 2014 dated March 18, 2014 to provide in particular that, a party cannot register a cause of action at more than one High Court Registry and that a cause once registered may not be withdrawn without leave of the judge to whom it has been allocated.

The Chief Justice therefore said he hoped the amendments would go a long way in eliminating “this shameful and dishonourable practice.”

Regarding case disposal rates, Justice Maruping said with the Judicial Case Management (JCM) and the current establishment of 23 judges of the High Court, he was impressed that the High Court did not have a backlog of cases due to adherence by almost all the judges of the court to the agreed turnaround times for different case types. 

Nevertheless Justice Dibotelo  said it was only a few isolated cases where there had been delays and those concerned were advised to expedite delivery of the outstanding judgements before their courts. 

He said the successful implementation of JCM had continued to improve the efficiency with which litigation was handled by the High Court including increased case disposal rates.

The Chief Justice said during the months of September and October 2014, they hosted two high powered delegations comprising of judges of the High Court, and Justices of the Supreme Court of Tanzania and their support staff as well as high powered delegation from all provinces of South Africa, on bench marking visits on the implementation of local reforms, some of which they intended to adopt and start implementing in their respective jurisdictions.
ENDS