Courts enter 21st century

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 28 Aug 2007

SA's staid courts are gradually entering the 21st Century, says justice minister Brigitte Mabandla.

She notes "most of the courts are using IT systems to provide services".

"The systems are designed to focus on each specific service rendered in each court," she said in a written reply to a question asked in Parliament.

Mabandla said most courtrooms now use a digital recording system to tape proceedings. "To date, 1 607 courtrooms have the system installed and operational, including all the High Courts. The remaining 300 courtrooms will be completed [shortly]."

Stolen dockets

The e-scheduler system used by court administrators to electronically run the court diary now also captures dockets electronically "so that they are saved on the system". The loss of paper dockets through theft, bribery and negligence have bedevilled the administration of justice for years. Going paperless is seen as a major step towards combating that scourge, in addition to making the system more efficient and effective.

Mabandla added "all the contents of the charge sheet are recorded electronically, including progress [with] the case and details of the accused and officials involved".

She said statistics regarding the impact of lost and stolen dockets are not readily available, as they are not collected by either her department or the National Prosecuting Authority. "The field in the e-scheduler is currently being revisited and a field to capture such information will be considered.

"It can be mentioned, however, that on average the number of cases of court proceedings being interrupted due to lost and stolen dockets has decreased according to information sourced from the various heads of the courts. This is largely due to measures initiated to enforce stricter control over dockets such as the implementation of registers at prosecutor-level for docket handover control and docket lockup facilities at police- and court-level.

"A further measure receiving attention is a scanning solution currently being tested and to be implemented at the end of this financial year. It will be run as part and parcel of the e-scheduler management system, so that the scheduling of cases and the required presence of dockets at courts are aligned," Mabandla told MPs.

Another development, according to the minister, is the e-docket system that is being piloted by the SA Police Service. "This will ensure a permanent electronic copy of the content of the case docket will be available at all times and so reduce time lost as a result of dockets not being available for whatever reason." This will be phased in during the next three years.

To date, 455 courts have the e-scheduler installed and operational. "The outstanding 20 courts are undergoing rehabilitation and will be attended to as soon as the work is completed."

Challenges

E-scheduler is supported by the Justice Deposit Account System, an in-house e-bookkeeping solution that electronically captures and tracks maintenance and bail payments into and from the courts.

"To date, there are 145 courts with the system. The process of installing the system in the remaining courts is under way. [Roll-out at all] the relevant courts in the North West [province] and Limpopo have been completed," Mabandla added.

The minister told MPs the department faced a considerable challenge in migrating away from paper due to the sheer volume of dockets and ongoing cases. "On the e-scheduler, we have captured about 213 000 charge sheets out of 230 000 charge sheets of cases currently being attended to in the criminal justice system. The capturing of the remaining charge sheets is ongoing.

"The department will now start with the scanning of additional documentation in the system. An additional server has been bought for R30 million and it will be used to support the system."

The department has not yet commented on the cost of the various ICT initiatives.