00:00Seven additional puny judges were appointed by the President today, joining seven others who were appointed in January of this
00:08year.
00:09The judges are to be assigned to various courts across the country, civil, criminal, children and family,
00:16as the Chief Justice makes good on his vow to enhance the delivery of justice to all.
00:21With the 14 additional judges appointed, we feel pretty much up to strength and it's therefore going to assist us
00:33with trying to deliver judgments on a timely manner,
00:38dealing with output and of course focusing as well on the quality of the decisions of the court.
00:46The public understandably wants to have their cases within a reasonable time and disposed of and determined in a fair
00:56way
00:56and we think that with the 14 judges who have been appointed in the last three months, that this will
01:01go a long way with that.
01:02We've also had appointments of magistrates recently, we've had some retired magistrates returning as well.
01:10In February, the judiciary hosted a stakeholder session on criminal justice backlog reduction.
01:17However, in the absence of a central database to track pending cases, obtaining comprehensive data is a challenge.
01:24I don't want to speak off the top of my head with statistics.
01:27We do compilation of statistics from time to time.
01:33We have also changed reporting and monitoring systems within the judiciary.
01:40The oldest cases are in the criminal court, some of the oldest cases.
01:44So that really is a priority area and it has been for some time.
01:49We really are trying to address the oldest cases first, the backlog,
01:56and we hope that in a few months' time we should be able to report some good news by the
02:03start of the next low term
02:04in terms of some of the initiatives that we have already started.
02:08On the other end of the spectrum, the government is moving to introduce hybrid sentencing,
02:14parole and probation legislation are now before parliament
02:17in a bid to ease prison overcrowding and reduce repeat offending.
02:22However, the Chief Justice is reserving comment on the issue.
02:26I wouldn't comment on legislation which is presently before the parliament.
02:30However, the Chief Justice did indicate his willingness to weigh in on the process
02:36by which Senior Counselor appointed if and when the matter comes before him formally.
02:42Well, I know that it is something that the profession has talked about for some time
02:48and I know that there may be suggestions or proposals on how that should be done.
02:57The Law Association has done some work on it.
03:00When we have a specific proposal that comes to the table,
03:04we would be happy to give our input on it.
03:06The appointment of Senior Counselor, as it is, in the past the Chief Justice has had a role
03:12in terms of being able to comment on some of the appointments and so on before they are made.
03:21None have come to me and I imagine that when that happens,
03:27the process would be looked at.
03:30Renasa Cutting, TV6 News.
Comments