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ISSUE OF CONVICTION RATES IN COURTS

Government has been accused of dodging crime realities and the impression was created that criminals are more protected than citizens. A research document published by the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) was used to support these allegations

It should be noted that the statistics used in the report are both outdated and limited in reference:

* The report refers to a sample of cases reported in 8 police areas only;
* It refers to conviction rates in respect of cases reported in 1997/1998;
* The study differs from other research into conviction and clearance rates, in that it tracked the outcome of individual cases, whereas other studies do not follow individual cases, but instead compare the progress of different cases in the same period, for example by using the yearly review method, which compares the number of convictions in one year with the number of cases reported to the police in the same year;
* The study did not verify the data through perusing the specific case dockets for each case in the sample rather than only relying on the CAS system (the reason given: "it was not feasible to physically look through thousands of dockets in the hundreds of police stations" - however, even doing just a check on a sub-sample of the report's sample of cases could have made the data more credible).

The fact is that there are many reasons why the number of convictions in relation to the number of crimes reported in a certain period of time may differ substantially (for example, many cases are withdrawn; others may still be open pending investigations; others are still unsolved, etc.).

In addition, it should be noted that the conviction rate in the report is calculated in relation to the number of crimes reported to the police and is used to portray a picture of the extent to which crimes have been successfully investigated and prosecuted. It is important to note that there are different ways of reporting on conviction rates, for example, by using the trial-based perspective (convictions as a percentage of the number of cases going to court) or the report-based perspective (convictions as a percentage of the cases reported to the police).

However more importantly, the news articles fail to acknowledge that a lot has changed since the study was conducted and also fail to acknowledge all the measures that government has put in place to deal with crime and to improve the criminal justice system.

We have more convicted criminals in our jails than ever before; in fact our jails are heavily overcrowded. So clearly something is being done about criminals. Our courts are busier than ever before - and with positive results relating to increased court hours and increased convictions. Improvement in court performance is a proven phenomenon. It is clear that more cases than ever before are going to courts and that the District and Regional Courts have addressed the increase in workload by steadily improving on their average court hours.

RE AGA BOSWA

Now I would like to turn my focus to a project that was reported to you during the last parliamentary press briefing, i.e. "Re aga boswa". This is a project that seeks to realign the department in order to provide better service for the end users or the public. Its benefits are the following:
* swift decisions
* decentralised budget
* accountability
* reduced cycle times efficiency
* proximity to the courts

What has been done so far?

The first provincial office to benefit from this project was KwaZulu-Natal and the following has been done:

* 75 courts have been de-linked from the Regional Office and will be managed by Court Managers, signalling the end of Regional Office KwaZulu-Natal.
* The province has been demarcated into 11 administration sub clusters, each under a Court Manager who will operate under the guidance of a Senior Court Manager stationed at the provincial division of the High Court.
* Of the 123 staff members currently in the Regional Office, only 55 will be required to perform transactional functions at the Court Services Support Centre. 67 staff members will be retrained and redeployed to the courts where their services are mostly needed, resulting in more money being reverted to our core function, the courts.

The next province that will be tackled will be Gauteng and this will start during September 2003

EXEMPTIONS ON PROMOTION OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION ACT (ACT 2 OF 2000)

I granted a further exemption on 27 August 2003 to accommodate small businesses in particular from submitting their information manuals in terms of section 51 of the Promotion of Access to Information Act. The public must understand that this exemption is not permanent. We have deliberately avoided to include penalties in this Act for non-compliance because we are building a new culture of openness in the private sector as well. We need all to embrace this new culture and psychological climate. Private companies need not wait for the last month of the two years for them to submit their manuals. Those who are ready can submit now and anytime before the cut-off date.

THE APARTHEID REPARATIONS LITIGATION IN NEW YORK

The South African Government is fully committed to finding solutions to the issue of reparations and is willing to facilitate discussions between all the concerned role players.

While we acknowledge the right of the claimants to institute litigation, the government is of the view that the litigation in New York must be stopped. Our position is that where action around reparations has to be instituted, South African courts should try the issue. We feel that matters affecting a sovereign state should not be adjudicated upon by a foreign court. We therefore believe that the issue of reparations is an issue, which affects South Africans and should be dealt with by South Africans primarily in South Africa.

Besides, these issues, including the question of reparations for victims of apartheid and amnesty for perpetrators of gross human rights abuses, are already being dealt with in South Africa. We have put in place the necessary legislative frameworks. In April already, President Thabo Mbeki, announced what the reparations to be paid to individuals will be. In addition, the question of community reparations and the form that it will take is being given attention. An appropriate amendment to the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, 1995 to reflect this aspect has been tabled in Parliament.

The President's Fund has also been established, has made interim payments to victims and will receive donations from various sources, including business, governments and individuals. We do not believe that the goodwill which exists in South Africa and the partnerships, which have developed to deal with the past, should be jeopardised by the litigation in New York.

SUPPORTING DOCUMENT

PROGRESS ON CONVICTION RATES

AVERAGE NATIONAL COURT HOURS: RESULTS

There has been an impressive improvement in court hours of District and Regional Courts. District Courts improved drastically from the 3,39 hours registered in 1999 to 4,11 hours.

Average National Court Hours 2000 - 2002

2000
District Courts: 3,53
Regional Courts: 3,52
High Courts: 3,22

2001
District Courts: 3,53
Regional Courts: 3,52
High Courts: 3,29

2002
District Courts: 4,11
Regional Courts: 4,00
High Courts: 3,28

This increase in average court hours means that the courts were able to finalise more cases. The number of cases finalised in the district and regional courts is given below:

1999
District courts: 219 416
Regional courts: 28 579

2000
District courts: 285 718
Regional courts: 33 758

2001
District courts: 313 822
Regional courts: 40 422

2002
District courts: 334 880
Regional courts: 38 390

The increasing trend in the number of finalised cases has been supported by an increase in the conviction rate of cases that went to court:

NATIONAL CONVICTION RATE: RESULTS

* District Courts improved on average their conviction rate.
* Regional Courts improved dramatically.
* High Courts also improved significantly - at end of March already exceeding the target of 85%.

National Conviction Rate 2000 - 2002

2000
District Courts: 76%
Regional Courts: 64%
High Courts: 77%

2001
District Courts: 82%
Regional Courts: 66%
High Courts: 77%

2002
District Courts: 83%
Regional Courts: 74%
High Courts: 82%

The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development has also embarked on several initiatives to improve the court process.

Firstly it should be noted that Treasury allocated millions of Rands additionally to the Integrated Justice System to improve the efficiency of the system. In 2003 alone, R80m was given additionally to Justice in this regard. From these funds various initiatives could be embarked on, such as the following:

Additional training to court staff is a priority that has received substantial attention

SATURDAY AND ADDITIONAL COURTS

Saturday and additional courts are held to reduce the number of outstanding cases on the roll and to shorten the cycle time of cases in the court process. To deal with the case backlogs facing us, 3 027 Saturday and additional courts sat during January to September 2002. This amounted to 10 153 additional court days. These Saturday and additional courts finalised 27 570 cases, from January 2002 till March 2003. More courts are being encouraged to sit over weekends to reduce unacceptable case backlogs.

INTEGRATED CASE FLOW MANAGEMENT

The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development has introduced an Integrated Case Flow Management system in the court environment. The initiative was launched in response to the need to deal proactively with the huge number of both outstanding civil and criminal cases in our courts. 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. 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. Proactive management includes instituting a pre-trial system to clear cases that do not need to go to trial.

INTEGRATED JUSTICE SYSTEM COURT CENTRES PROJECT

The objective of the IJS Court Centre project is to enable the courts to deliver swift and efficient justice and aims to improve court and case management, thereby reducing case cycle time. Since the start of the project the average cycle time for a case in court reduced from 145 days to 74 days.

In addition to the above overall improvements, the Department has embarked upon the following service delivery improvement initiatives:
* Rationalised courts for improved efficiency
* Decentralisation of court support
* Court Process Project (re-engineering of court processes and automation)
* Fast-tracking guilty pleas: dealing with inefficiency and delays

Issued by: Ministry for Justice and Constitutional Development

11 September 2003