Deputy registrar calls for accurate court statistics

Lebogang Baingapi | Tuesday May 9, 2017 15:30

The deputy registrar, Legal, Bafi Nlanda said it was important to note that as the department compiles statistics, they have to ensure that they represent quality service, accuracy, timeliness and integrity as per the department’s core values.

“The judiciary as an arm of the Government, does not operate in isolation from executive and legislature. While we are separate and independent from other arms of government, we are also accountable to the nation with regard to the delivery of justice.

We contribute to the strategic Vision 2036 goal of Rule of Law and we expected to align to the key performance indicators of confidence in the judicial system, judicial independence and speediness in judicial process,” Nlanda explained.

He noted that it was important for team members in the production of court case statistics to be accurate because the statistics are used by executive leaders for various purposes such as performance, distributing and mobilising of resources.

The deputy registrar added that the statistics are also shared with the President on their quarterly presidential briefings and other stakeholders during their judicial conferences, civil and criminal justice forum and also with the public during the Tokafatso Maduo radio call-in programme.

“We have noted with concern that we have been experiencing some challenges with regard to our manual and electronic court case statistics.

The records from our print files and those in the Case Records Management System (CRMS) do not always tally. There is a lot of discrepancy between the two,” Nlanda said.

He indicated that the department has heavily invested in the CRMS and disappointedly, they are unable to reap the fruits of that labour from it, though it has been 12 years  of this investment.   They are still using the manual records while in fact they were supposed to retrieve information at the click of a button.

The aim of the workshop was to come together as the Process Owners and key stakeholders in the monitoring, preparation and reporting of Court Case Statistics for all case types, share information and ideas on how to prepare and produce statistics for all case types in all respective places of work in the Administration of Justice.

Participants were also expected to share information on the types of templates/forms they use to record, produce, and report court case statistics.

It also aimed at appreciating the role and the significance of court case statistics in informing policy decisions and/or programme planning.

Lastly, the participants were to come up with resolutions that will inform management going forward to enhance the organisation’s performance. That is, standardising their reporting and calculations.