Justice Vision 2000: Executive Summary

The Justice Vision 2000 document is a product of a long process of consultation amongst role players in the administration of justice. This process dates back to 1994 when the first Legal Forum on Crime was held. Since then there have been two other legal forums, one on Legal Education and another on Access to Justice. At all these forums various issues relating to the administration of justice were raised and debated openly.

What was clear from the outset was that the administration of justice was in need of change; not change for the sake of it but because people want a more effective and open system of justice which is within reach of the ordinary person. Also, the Constitution compels us to develop a system of justice which is in keeping with democracy and respect for human rights.

It was with this in mind that the Minister of Justice, Dr A M Omar, established the Planning Unit at the end of 1995. The Planning Unit, which has been based in the Department of Justice, has had the task of drawing up a strategic plan for the transformation of the administration of justice and the provision of legal services to the state. This plan, which is the Justice Vision 2000 document, has now been completed.

Justice Vision 2000 looks specifically at the next five years, that is, from 1997 until the year 2002. But it does not stop there. It looks forward to processes that will continue after 2002, and it also looks backwards to processes that began immediately after the democratic elections in April 1994. These processes have all been integrated into Justice Vision 2000. There were many other people and organisations who contributed to the contents of the document. They include people who are working for the Department of Justice, people who are practising law, Attorneys-General and members of their staff, magistrates, law lecturers and a number of NGOs. In other words, it is the product of a combined effort by a lot of people who are committed to the transformation of the justice system.

Justice Vision 2000 was officially launched by the Minister of Justice in September 1997.

CHAPTER 1: THE GUIDING PRINCIPLES

This chapter contains the mission statement, the values that underpin it, the vision and the seven Key Result Areas that we have identified

The Mission Statement

The mission statement sets out the purpose of the Department of Justice and the nature of its business. This is to administer justice in South Africa and to oversee state legal and legislative services.

We will carry out this mission according to the values that are in the new Constitution and the government policy on reconstruction and development. Democracy and equality are at the heart of these values.

In keeping with these values, the Department of Justice will move away from the standard law and order model and towards a human rights model . We will affirm diversity and the equal worth of all people instead of emphasising differences. We will also:

  • Ensure greater efficiency and effectiveness
  • Focus on customer service and on results
  • Promote cost effectiveness
  • Ensure transparency
  • Uphold the Constitution and the Rule of Law
  • Incorporate and expand community participation in the administration of justice

The Values

The mission and vision of the Department are based on values that seek to:

  • Administer the law and legal affairs of the state in an open and accountable way. This will be in keeping with the ideals expressed in the Constitution such as:
  • Human rights
  • Democracy
  • Equality
  • Human dignity
  • Freedom
  • Non-discrimination

It will also be in keeping with the ideals expressed in government policies on reconstruction and development, such as:

  • The improvement of the quality of life for all people; and
  • The reconstruction and development of society in South Africa
  • Promote fair and equal access to justice for all people
  • Adopt policies that will do away with racial and other social, economic and cultural disparities that are rooted in the experiences of the past.
  • Address the special needs of disadvantaged groups such as women, children, persons with disabilities and rural communities;
  • Provide effective and appropriate compensation for victims;
  • Administer the law humanely, impartially, justly and fairly;
  • Provide a friendly, efficient and professional service that is sympathetic to people's different needs;
  • Treat all the people who work in the justice system fairly and make sure that our working environment is affirming; and
  • Provide career advancement possibilities for all people who work in the justice system regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, status, cultural background, political affiliation, religious affiliation, disability or any other distinction. This includes being pro-active in addressing the imbalances of the past.

The Vision

The vision describes the way that we will fulfill our mission. The vision of the Department of Justice is to transform the justice system so that it reflects the basic constitutional ideals, as well as goals of the government policies on reconstruction and development.

The system of justice that we see will:

  • Provide fair and equal access to justice for all South Africans, regardless of their race, gender, marital status, ethnic or social origin, sexual orientation, age, economic status, disability, religion, belief, culture, language or any other attribute;
  • Ensure justice processes that are fast, effective and as cheap as possible. They should also be sensitive to the needs of all users, and understandable to all users;
  • Provide legal services to the government that are efficient and cost effective. This means that the present frameworks will have to be simplified and made more efficient, more effective and more sensitive to people's different needs; and
  • Be able to gain the confidence of the public in the administration of justice. In order to do this we have identified seven Key Result Areas for transformation, namely:
  1. An integrated, efficient and representative Department of Justice;
  2. A legitimate, service-oriented and efficient system of courts and other structures administering justice that is staffed by people who represent everybody in South Africa;
  3. Safety, security and freedom from crime for everybody;
  4. Fair and equal access to justice for all, taking into account the diversity of people's needs;
  5. Effective and efficient human resource development systems;
  6. A well trained, broadly representative, accessible and evenly distributed legal profession; and
  7. Effective and efficient provision of legal and legislative services to the state.

CHAPTER 2: THE STRATEGIES

This chapter describes the transformation process: It outlines:

The challenges ahead of us in each of the seven Key Result Areas;

  • the strategic goals and key indicators of success;
  • the strategies for achieving each goal; and
  • the specific action plans for each strategy; showing:
  • What has to be done
  • When it will begin, or when it began
  • How long it will take
  • Who will be responsible
  • What resources will be needed
  • The indicators that will tell us how well we are succeeding

Here are the main features of each of the seven Key Result Areas.

1. The Department of Justice

There are three main issues:

  1. We will rationalise and integrate all the different institutions, laws and systems of justice so that we can make sure that our customer service and our employment conditions address the inequalities of the past. To do this we will:
  • Develop our institutions;
  • build up our infrastructure; and
  • rationalise the laws of the country

We will pay special attention to previously neglected areas like the former apartheid homelands and to previously disadvantaged people.

  1. We will rationalise and integrate our human resources and management systems. We will:
  • Concentrate on building good human resources policies and practices, so that we can perform our work well'
  • Ensure that all people, especially historically disadvantaged people, will be represented at all levels and in all structures of the Department;
  • Remove all discriminatory barriers that stop people from joining the Department; and
  • Plan career paths so that people can advance and get job satisfaction
  1. We will design and build a new corporate image for the Department, one that matches our new values and our vision. For a long time, people saw the Department as an instrument for enforcing apartheid laws and for causing people great hardship. We want to shed this image. Our new image will be based on human dignity and respect for human rights. To make people more aware of our image and our services we will educate them about:
  • Their human rights;
  • their rights in the legal system;
  • the new values of the Department of Justice; and
  • the services that we offer and how to use them

We will train our staff in human rights, the awareness and appreciation of diversity and customer service. We will run development programmes on values and attitudes so that we will be able to treat each other and members of the public with dignity and respect. At the same time, we will run a public education drive to affirm a human rights culture in society generally.

2. Courts and the other structures that administer justice

Here we will focus on our courts and the other structures that administer justice. This will include the high courts, the magistrates courts, family courts, tribunals, small claims courts, community courts, traditional courts, Justices of the Peace, alternative dispute resolution forums and the institutions responsible for the administration of estates. We will focus particularly on three areas:

  1. We will enable people to choose appropriate ways of resolving their legal disputes by providing different kinds of courts and dispute resolution mechanisms. We will:
  • Desegregate the courts and the other structures that administer justice; and
  • Increase the number of courts and other structures that administer justice, their capacity, and their distribution, so that all people will have easy access to justice.
  1. We will make sure that all the different courts are run well and that they work in harmony with one another. This includes all the courts in the criminal and the civil justice system. We will:
  • Increase the speed at which cases in the courts and other structures are managed and concluded
  • Re-organise court management and introduce a cluster system for the lower courts to enhance and speed up the flow of information.
  1. We will implement sound human resource policies. We will make sure that people from all groups, especially from disadvantaged groups, are able to work at all levels in the courts and in the administration of justice. We will:
  • Provide all the people who work in the justice system with training about dignity, human rights, attitudes and diversity
  • Strengthen judicial independence
  • Increase popular participation in the justice system
  • Make it more accountable to the public

3. Crime Safety and Security

Here we will focus on re-organising the criminal justice system. We will make sure that offenders are dealt with effectively, efficiently and fairly. We will also make sure that victims get support and fair compensation. We will focus particularly on three areas:

  1. We will make sure that criminals, once they are arrested, are properly tried. We will make sure that bail and sentencing are done effectively, consistently, and in such a way that crime will be prevented and safety for all communities will be promoted.

  2. We will strengthen prosecutorial policy and capacity and improve the consistency of the system

  3. We will work with other government departments as part of the National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS). Specifically, we will provide effective leadership in redesigning the criminal justice system. Among other things, we will focus on:

  • Victim compensation and support
  • Witness protection
  • Vulnerable groups of people
  • Improved case management

4. Access to justice

Here we will focus on creating a justice system that is simple, fair and inexpensive. At the same time, it should be effective, efficient and responsible to the different needs of different communities in South Africa. We will focus on five main areas.

  1. We will give all people, especially marginalised groups, greater access to legal advice and legal representation and will ensure that there is consumer protection for people who use legal services.

  2. We will review the procedures and languages used in the courts. We will:

  • Review court documents and all public communications so that we can improve people's access to justice and their participation
  • Take special care to see to the needs of marginalised groups

  1. We will improve people's access to alternative ways of solving disputes. We will integrate informal ways of solving disputes into both the criminal justice and civil justice systems, and also the administration of estates.

  2. We will increase the protection of vulnerable groups and facilitate access to social justice in all areas of the law. We will emphasise the reform of:

  • Family law
  • The law of succession
  • Property law a(including that under customary law and religious laws)
  • The laws relating to how people can be protected from violence
  1. We will actively implement the provisions of the Constitution, especially the provisions that relate to dignity, equality and administrative justice. At the same time we will change, or remove, all laws that are not consistent with the values of the Constitution.

5. Human Resource Development

Here we will deal specially with training and other educational activities. We will improve the skills and the motivation of all the people who work in the justice system, so that we can provide excellent customer service. We will also make sure that all our people understand the human rights that are in our Constitution. We will actively promote a culture of human rights in all aspects of the Department of Justice. We will focus on five areas:

  1. Professional development, including attitudinal and human rights awareness for judges, magistrates and other people who are working in our courts;

  2. Leadership and management development, including attitudinal and human rights awareness, for managers at all levels in the justice system;

  3. Training programmes, including attitudinal and human rights awareness for administrative and support staff.

  4. The re-engineering and decentralisation of institutions, infrastructure and human resource development; and

  5. Co-operation with a variety of private and public training institutions so that we can strengthen our training programmes.

6. The legal profession

Here we will deal with the transformation of the legal profession. We will change the way that people who go into the legal profession are educated and trained. We will make sure that the composition of the legal profession properly reflects all the different people in South Africa. We will make sure that the entire legal profession properly reflects all the different people in South Africa. We will make sure that all legal professionals have some understanding and appreciation of the many different people in South Africa particularly people who are different in terms of their race, gender, culture, disability, religion, language or sexual orientation. We will make sure that the legal profession can respond properly to the legal needs of all the people in the South African society. We will make sure that the legal profession is fully accountable to the public for the things that it does. We will focus particularly on four areas:

  1. We will support training programmes for people, especially for historically disadvantaged people, so that they will be able to enter the legal profession, and to be promoted in it.

  2. We will develop policies to make sure that legal services are evenly distributed in all areas, and to all people.

  3. We will develop policies to make sure that people can afford to use legal services.

  4. We will review the way that the legal profession works, and develop policies to protect people who use it and to make it more accountable to the public.

7. State Legal and Legislation Services

Here we will focus on transforming the institutions and policies that relate to the provision of legal services to the government. We will promote efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness to the needs of the present democratic government. We have identified three main areas for transformation.

  1. We will redesign the policies and the institutions that provide legal and legislative services. We will make sure that they are cohesive, uniform and efficient. We will also consider creating a single national legislative services unit for the national government.

  2. We will re-organise the systems that provide legal and legislative services, and develop the specialist nature of their work so that they can be truly responsive to the needs of the central government, the various government departments and the provinces.

  3. We will implement our new human resource policies, including the employment equity policy, in the legal and legislative services. This will make sure that we attract competent legal professionals. Once they have joined the Department, we will develop and support them so that they stay with the Department and provide the necessary services.

CHAPTER 3: IMPLEMENTATION AND MONITORING

In order to transform the Department of Justice we will have to set up proper control processes. They will help us to implement our plans. They will also make sure that the vision that is contained in Justice Vision 2000 is not relegated to obscurity while business goes on as usual.

The action plans that are in the strategy section are all integrated into the functional parts of the organogram of the Department. This means that we can control them and that we will be held accountable for them. Within the action plans, we have identified a number of priority projects. We call these the premier projects. Throughout the implementation of Justice Vision 2000 they will be given priority. We have developed 30 business plans to implement the premier projects and we will appoint bodies, both inside and outside the Department, to make sure that they are carried out.

The rest of the Justice Vision 2000 document focusses on the implementation of the transformation process. It illustrates the transformation process in a series of diagrams.

  1. The organisational structure of the Department of Justice (The organogram as it has been approved by the Department of Public Service and Administration).

  2. They way that the transformation process will be managed in the Ministry and the Department of Justice through the Change Management Structures.

  3. The Planning Process, including the hierarchy of plans.

  4. The implementation of Justice Vision 2000 through the Premier Projects.

 

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