28 Oct 2013

The Judicial Case Management (JCM) system has recorded a number of successes since its inception at the High Court and magistrate courts in 2008 and 2011 respectively, Chief Justice Maruping Dibotelo has said.

Speaking at the judicial stakeholders’ conference on Friday, October 25, Justice Dibotelo said they had been able to set turnaround times of cases which would guide them in addressing backlog levels.He indicated that even though there were still other matters to address, a lot of moribund cases had been put to rest. 

He told the conference that their performance at the High Court level for the period July 2012 to end of August this year showed that as at July last year, the three divisions had a total of 3 626 civil and 700 criminal cases pending. During the same period under review, he added, the divisions received a total of 7 226 civil as well as 1 506 criminal cases. Also during the same period, he said they managed to complete 6 708 civil and 1 398 criminal cases.

Justice Dibotelo said that showed that they had achieved 100 per cent in disposing of cases against those they received in the same period; something he noted as a commendable achievement. Furthermore, the chief justice indicated that while the situation at the magistrates’ courts had not reached the same levels as the High Court, the reform has had some positive effects.

He however said while they recorded a number of successes for which he applauded their stakeholders’ contribution, a number of challenges still remained. He noted that they lacked resources because of understaffed registries and inadequate court reporters responsible for transcription of court records.

As a result, Justice Dibotelo  said those who appealed against decisions of trial court never found it easy to get their records with the appellate court. Another challenge, he added, was that of inadequate equipment such as computers and scanners.

Meanwhile, Justice Dibotelo said the reform required continuous training for the new incoming staff and refresher training for those already in the system. In the past, he said, the UNDP used to fund such training programmes which included training of stakeholders in the judiciary. 

“E-Filing is also intended to have its pilot test with High Court next year. This will, among other things, reduce queues at our registries and cause a reduction of work by registry staff in receiving and scanning documents. My office is alive to the concerns of our stakeholders in respect to delayed judgements. This matter is being addressed and we hope to see an improvement in this area,” he said.

Of concern too, he said, was the issue of uncollected maintenance money for which he indicated the resolution was moving at a slow pace.  Nevertheless, the chief justice explained that the intention was that the collection of maintenance money be decentralised so that recipients can collect their money through the banks, post offices and government revenue offices throughout the country.  ENDS