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Immediate steps need to be taken by Justice Minister Jeff Radebe to address South Africa's increasingly inefficient and backlog ridden courts system, given that the National Prosecuting Authority's 2008/09 annual report shows that courts are buckling under the pressure of high case loads and bureaucratic inefficiencies. The NPA report shows that backlogged cases have increased 26.5% over the past five years, and that the outstanding roll has increased by 13.82% in the same time period. For the third year in a row, both backlogged cases and the outstanding roll registered year-on-year increases. This means that there 276,978 cases are now stuck in our courts system - a year-on-year increase of nearly 5,000 cases, and a five year increase of 37,387 cases, or 15.6%. The corollary of this is that the total number of cases finalised by our courts have declined substantially over the past five years - from 381,020 cases in 2004/2005, to 311,825 this year. And though the number of finalised cases increased marginally over the past twelve months, the most recent figure still constitutes 18.2% fewer cases than were processed in 2004/2005. What is particularly startling about these figures is that the total number of cases being resolved by alternative dispute resolution mechanisms is increasingly significantly. Though this is certainly something to be commended, it also means that the backlogs and inefficiencies are increasing in spite of the fact that a larger proportion of new cases are being diverted away from regular courts. The NPA report also points out that "higher inflow[s] of cases" and "[m]ore accused and more counts per case" are to blame for the increase in outstanding cases. This suggests that when the SAPS Annual Report is released later this month we will see an increase in key crime figures; this would in turn explain why the ANC government went back on the previous Safety and Security minister's pledge to release crime statistics twice annually, since the first release this year would have occurred in the run up to the general election. The key prosecutorial data revealed by the NPA annual report follows below:
2004/5 2005/6 2006/7 2007/8 2008/9 %
New cases 1084137 1069724 1062497 1037538 1058376 -2.38
Withdrawals 318767 311078 306050 305893 286837 -10.02
Diversions 18946 37422 44483 46470 43729 130.81
Admissions of guilt 30115 38015
Informal mediations 15393 38032
Total cases finalised by ADRs 18946 37422 44483 91978 119776 532.20
Total cases finalised by sat / add courts 11751 1432 1525 3503 4497 -61.73
Total cases finalised by regular courts 381020 373995 334551 296656 311825 -18.16
Backlog cases 33595 37216 36130 39736 42495 26.50
Outstanding roll 206005 198990 206508 232518 234483 13.82
Total cases not finalised 239600 236206 242638 272254 276978 15.60

Though the roots of the bottlenecks and inefficiencies within our justice system are intricate and warrant an across-the-board overhaul of the functioning of the Justice Department, the most significant problem certainly remains the staffing crisis - which has been exacerbated by the obstinacy of the previous ANC administration in dealing with this problem.

For instance, the previous Minister of Justice admitted in August last year that his department had in hundreds of cases undertaken the "deliberate non filling of vacant posts for the past three years" because demographic targets were not being met [see Parliamentary Question 1472 - Date of publication: 29 August 2008]. Leaving posts standing vacant for years for this sort of reason constitutes a frightening lack of understanding of the role of government as a provider of services to the public, and, thus, a fundamental abrogation of governmental responsibilities.

The Justice Ministry needs to urgently reform - to streamline and expedite - the processes associated with the hiring and retention of staff. The DA's criminal justice plan, Conquering Fear, Commanding Hope, has made tackling prosecutorial vacancies a top priority. The DA would take the following steps to reduce court backlogs:

• Bring in private sector legal skills. Court backlogs can be reduced by engaging creatively with the private sector and, in particular, by encouraging legal practitioners to work as legal aid lawyers or public prosecutors.
• Hire more prosecutors. A DA government would immediately take steps to hire an additional 500 public prosecutors nationwide, in a bid to reduce backlogs. The ANC does not appear to recognise the need for significantly ratcheting up the number of prosecutors, and as long as this remains the status quo, we cannot expect to address court backlogs.
• Engage with the legal profession, to ensure that three months of the two year articles that candidate attorneys must complete is served in the public service.
• Improve working conditions. The DA believes that more legal practitioners can be attracted to work in prosecutorial posts if working conditions are enhanced. This means carrying out a real infrastructural upgrade, and demonstrating a commitment to performance-based assessment, with a view to retaining and promoting top performers.