Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi said on Wednesday that budget cuts have severely limited the ability of her department to bolster security measures at courts.
Responding to oral questions in the National Assembly, Kubayi said they have looked at augmenting security infrastructure in an attempt to deal with the challenge.
“The ICT equipment for searching, we augment it with human beings and physical security. Sometimes the report we get is that that’s not sufficient,” she said.
Kubayi was asked by DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach on the steps her department has taken to ensure that scanners and other security systems work effectively and are repaired and maintained properly.
Kubayi said they were looking at courts that have high incidence rates to be prioritised by placing more security in addition to the police who man the courts.
“It’s one of the areas that we continue to work on as we think that currently, the situation is not satisfactory at our courts,” she said.
“As we do analysis to check what would have been the cause, we need IT equipment that cannot be interfered with, and for that, we need quite a lot of money to be able to do that.”
Kubayi conceded that her department did not comply with the Public Protector’s remedial action to conduct an audit of all courts to determine their infrastructure needs, upgrades, or renovations within 180 calendar days from the date of the report.
“Unfortunately, the plan was not met, and therefore, an extension was required and requested from the Public Protector to finalise the audit.
“I can report honourable Speaker and honourable members that the audit of all nine provinces has been completed and procurement plans have been initiated for this financial year so that we can be able to implement.”
She also said the minor capital works audit of the 38 courts visited by the Public Protector was prioritised and was included in the 82 courts targeted in the 2024/2025 financial year.
“Despite the initial target that was given, the department has successfully completed 108 minor capital works projects, exceeding the planned scope.”
Asked about measures to address the endless postponements of gender-based violence cases over the past five years, Kubayi said there used to be a committee that monitored the overall case backlog.
“You find that the reasons are different, so what we have done was we re-established that committee to try and assess what the causes of cases that are postponed for up to four or five years.”
She said they found that in cases that relate to children, there was a challenge with technology that was supposed to be utilised when children testified.
“Currently, for those systems, the department is looking at their procurement systems, but has also called on a partnership to be able to ensure that we can be able to deal with that.
“Another issue that we need to look at is that sometimes the delays are because of the defendant. They would utilise all avenues to be able to delay a court proceeding and unfortunately, because of our laws, that has to be done and the court has to follow that process, because otherwise the person can come back and say they have not been tried fairly, and the process was not correct, and therefore, can lead to appeals.”
Kubayi also said another issue they identified was the need to review the Criminal Procedures Act, and a bill would be presented to the Cabinet, the latest by September, before it is introduced in Parliament.
“It’s one of the areas that will assist us in the delays and also improve on handling some of the cases. One of the proposals is to deal with issues of bail.”
