B Mabandla: National Prosecuting Authority Stakeholder
Conference

28 March 2007

Programme Director
Director of National Prosecutions, Advocate Vusi Pikoli
Leadership of NPA
Esteemed stakeholders
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen

It is a pleasure for me to once more join you and address you at this
important conference. By coming together like this today, we acknowledge the
importance of co-operation and collaboration in the ongoing fight against
crime. I would therefore like to thank the National Director of Public
Prosecutions, Advocate Vusi Pikoli for inviting me to come and share with you
as stakeholders some thoughts on a number of issues that affect our work.

Ladies and gentlemen, by definition a stakeholder is an individual or group
with an interest in the success of an organisation. Now to have an interest in
the success of our country and society implies that we are all prepared to
unite in action for change. Enshrined in our Constitution is the principle of
co-operative governance. I believe that the cluster system of governance is an
effective marshalling of resources within and between government departments
and institutions. Government departments have over the last few years come to
embrace the notion that they have distinct but complementary roles and have
therefore forged good working relations and cooperate effectively in a number
of areas.

Our Department belongs to the Justice Crime Prevention and Security (JCPS)
cluster and perhaps one of the best examples of the integrated service
provision in the JCPS cluster and in co-operation with other clusters is to be
found in the Thuthuzela care centres, one stop multi-disciplinary service
centres for rape survivors. These centres under the auspices of the Sexual
Offences and Community Affairs (SOCA) unit of the NPA came out of a recognition
that we needed to provide important support that could lead to quality
investigations and therefore successful prosecutions. The centres therefore
provide a number of key services to the complainant under one roof. Here the
rape survivor is in a position to receive assistance from emergency support
service, medical staff, investigating officers, counsellors and prosecutors all
in one place. Positive results from Thuthuzela have prompted the need to set up
a number of similar care centres throughout the country. Last year we had eight
fully functional Thuthuzela care centres through out the country and this year
we are looking at opening more of these centres in other parts of the
country.

The Department has built more courts in areas where there were none before
and therefore brought justice services closer to all, with specific attention
on rural and township communities. This year we will, for example, be
finalising the construction of new courts at Daveyton (Benoni), Tsakane
(Brakpan), Sekgosese, Madadeni, Motherwell, the Nerina House One-Stop Child
Justice Centre in Port Elizabeth and a Commercial Crimes Court at Bellville. We
have also provided more specialised courts and established justice centres
which have made legal representation a reality for the poor and disadvantaged.
Access to justice for the indigent is a constant challenge.

Regarding community participation in our courts, we are continuing with our
efforts relating to lay assessors. A pilot project for lay assessors is
currently running at six sites namely, Pretoria, Polokwane, Port Elizabeth,
Protea North, Upington and Cape Town. The Department is busy finalising
regulations on the Magistrate's Courts Amendment Act 67 of 1998 in order to
roll out the project further.

Integration ensures that we utilise optimally the limited resources made
available to our departments individually and as a cluster. If we support the
integration of our practices with an integrated budget process we could further
enhance the effectiveness of our departments and clusters. The process must at
all times consider resourcing priority activities in such a way that the
service is provided within a framework of excellence and ultimate user
satisfaction.

Ladies and gentlemen, the various services of the extended justice family
demonstrate the need for a balanced and integrated approach to justice. The NPA
concentrates on combating crime, the Legal Aid Board seeks to ensure that
access to criminal, civil, economic and social justice is affordable for all
the people of this country. The courts play a very important role in this
balanced approach to justice by resolving all disputes brought before them. The
master of the High Court deals with civil matters that are of critical
importance to the lives of millions of citizens, constitutional development,
state attorney and state law advisors in rendering attorney and advocacy
services to the state as well as advisory and legal drafting assist in the
transforming of State and society, they are also of critical importance in
advancing the notion of co-operative governance one of the central pillars of
the Constitution.

During the past 12 years the Department has also been involved in either
restructuring or transforming the various institutions and bodies involved in
the administration of justice, these includes the Legal Aid Board, the South
African Law Reform Commission, the Magistrates Commission, the South African
Board for Sheriffs and the Rules Board for Courts of Law. We are currently
dealing with a number of initiatives aimed specifically at the transformation
of the justice system and in promoting access to justice, such as the Legal
Services Charter and a framework document on the transformation of the justice
system.

Another strategic aspect of the transformation concerns our key strategic
partners and stakeholders. While the considerable effort put behind the
transformation process of the prosecutorial and allied services into a
prestigious professional force in accordance with the Constitution, has clearly
paid off, the transformation process in the private legal sector and the
judiciary is only still taking off. It is imperative that the judiciary should
benefit likewise from a broad transformation process. I would like to express
my satisfaction with the process of engagement between the Department and the
judiciary and I am therefore pleased to announce that two crucial Bills that
affect the judiciary have been introduced to Parliament. These two Bills, the
Judicial Services Amendment Bill and the Judicial Education Institute Bill were
approved by Cabinet in October last year. A draft policy document on the other
aspects of the transformation of the judiciary will be submitted to Cabinet
shortly. The document will also be published to facilitate a broader public
participation. The policy framework will cover aspects that seek to enhance
access to justice, among others, the rationalisation of the high courts and the
re-demarcation of magisterial districts, civil and family law jurisdiction to
regional courts and the language usage in court proceedings.

Efforts to transform the legal sector are also continuing. We recently
completed the provincial consultation fora that took the draft Legal Services
Charter to all the nine provinces. The steering committee is currently working
on the second draft and hope this will be finalised by the third quarter of the
year. This should lay the foundation for the introduction of the Legal Practice
Bill during the final quarter of the year.

Ladies and gentlemen, significant progress is being made on the processes
involved in the criminal justice system review. A number of areas have been
identified for possible review:
* Bail courts, it is proposed that there be consideration to the establishment
of dedicated courts to focus on bail applications. This would not necessarily
require new infrastructure but within the current system, certain courtrooms
will be allocated exclusively for bail hearings. This will ensure that bail
matters are not mixed with trial cases resulting in delays. The NPA has already
done a lot of good work in this area and are piloting the concept. We will
receive reports in the second quarter of the year and then make a decision on
the efficiency of this framework.

We have also identified a number of areas on which to make immediate
improvements:

1. The Legal Aid Board and the South African Police Service (SAPS) are
working on system in terms of which applications for legal aid will be done
electronically from the police stations. The intention is to facilitate access
to legal representation on arrest so that when an arrested person makes his/her
first appearance in court, there will be legal representation present. This
will go a long way in reducing delays through postponements while accused
persons seek lawyers.

2. We are also developing an enhancement feature in our Justice Deposit
Account System (JDAS) system in terms of which it will be possible to pay bail
from any court in the country. Currently one can only pay bail for an arrested
person at the location at which the person is held or appearing. It is hoped
that we will have these systems functioning by the end of the year.

Some of the delays in the system are caused by inefficient management of
cases. We are reviewing a provision in the Criminal Procedure Act that will
make it possible for punitive measures to be imposed don those departments that
cause a delay. Some of those measures will include cost orders.

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the Department's major strategic interventions
has been through harnessing technological innovation, rationalising and
streamlining processes and procedures to ensure the provision of integrated
simpler, faster and cost effective quality services that will address backlogs.
In this regard the Department has prioritised the modernisation of the courts.
The e-scheduler is one of the most prominent information technology (IT)
innovations of the Department. It will make a dynamic impact on service
delivery. In this regard the e-scheduler system has been deployed to 332 (60%)
sites and user access was granted to 2 838 persons. This application is used to
register criminal court information for the court environment allowing the user
to generate information, such as the status of a case, first appearance, last
postponement date, no of days per case in the roll. The system enables the
courts to identify and address backlogs and blockages. Chairperson, at the end
of this briefing I would like to invite members of this committee for a
demonstration on the system.

Digital Recording System: A digital recording system has also been installed
in all the high courts and its rollout to the lower courts has commenced. This
entails the transition of the current court recording system from analogue to
digital systems across all courts as a uniform solution. A central archive
system is envisaged to support the digital court recording system in all courts
for 2007/08 financial year.

Video postponements: The video postponement project commenced at the Durban
Westville Correctional Centre which is linked to the Durban and Pinetown
Magistrates Courts. The project is based on the use of closed circuit
television (now video conferencing) in the court environment to facilitate the
postponement of cases in which the accused is an awaiting trial detainee,
without the detainee leaving the Correctional Centre facility. To date 4 899
postponements have been concluded. The system alleviates security risks with
escapes and danger to officials as well as saving resources and administrative
burden of transporting awaiting trial detainees to and from courts. It is used
for awaiting trial detainees and exclude juvenile cases.

Local stakeholders in the province are on board. The legislation is still in
the processing stage.

Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, I would like to emphasise that
notwithstanding our successes there are serious challenges. To address these
challenges there is a need for greater co-ordination between government
departments, institutions, private organisations and non-government
organisations (NGOs). I hope that the review of the Chapter 9 institutions will
provide a useful framework to us to enable the Chapter 9s to work better with
state departments and Parliament. My duty will be to continuously seek to
strengthen the enabling environment for our integrated system to work well. I
am grateful that we now have the potential to increase the capacity for station
organisations.

I wish you well in your deliberations for the rest of the conference.

Thank you!

Issued by: Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Development
28 March 2007
Source: Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (http://www.doj.gov.za/)