22 Sep 2013

The Assistant Registrar of the Industrial Court, Ms Segomotso Mbole-Mothotho says Industrial Court is facing a challenge of backlog of trade dispute cases.

Ms Mbole-Mothotho said this when addressing the Central District councillors recently. She stated that the accumulated cases dated back to 2010 adding that the cases had never reached adjudication stage.

She explained that other cases before 2010, which were still in the court system were delayed by their peculiar circumstances. These cases which were not concluded, she said, could nott be classified as backlog.

“Had it not been for their peculiar circumstances, they would have been concluded,” she said. Ms Mbole-Mothotho said statistics indicated that from the period 2004 to 2012, the cases which had gone through Industrial Court were 16 720.

Disposed cases during this period, she said, were 9 805, which is 59 per cent while those pending settlement were 6 915. She stated that in 2012, the court registered new cases totaling 1 965 and the influx of cases are for entitlement claims and unlawful dismissal. Registration trend, she said, suggest an under-utilised mediation process at the District Labor Office stage.

She observed that the ineffectiveness was due to the fact that some employers were not submitting to that mediation saying that district labour officers did not have powers. She said such cases that would have been settled at District labour office stage ended up going to Industrial Court.

Some cases accumulated during the economic meltdown when liquidating and closing down companies were allegedly involved in activities that contradicted labour laws. Difficulty of tracing clients due to high mobility, she said, was the other factor that contributed to backlog as they deal with clients that follow economic activity and job prospects.

Ms Mbole-Mothotho said the manual system of record keeping which is tedious and cumbersome has also contributed to the backlog. She told the council that they are looking forward to improving service delivery by removing wasteful activities when dealing with a case to reduce the time the case takes at the industrial court.

Enforcement of unique service standards and introduction of reforms for example fast track courts where entitlements are given to a judge to deal with them as soon as possible, she said is another strategy to abate backlog. Currently, she said, they are exploring how they can optimise technology to reduce delay of case in legal process and also to enhance retrieval of file of a case. ENDS