Hon Chairperson and Members of Parliament, many years ago a well-known South African judge was an interpreter in court during the earlier part of his career. In a stock theft case where the accused was charged with stealing sheep, the presiding officer hearing the matter informed the interpreter that he had to translate to the accused that he had been found not guilty. After translating the verdict to the accused, the accused then asked whether "not guilty" meant that he had to return the sheep! [Laughter.] Even though this Bill does not deal with the words that get lost in translation during court proceedings, it will ensure that administrative matters that are pre-eminently best placed within the domain of the office of the Chief Justice for the effective running of courts are indeed confirmed as being in that office. With the passing of the Bill today, the threat to the administrative independence of the judiciary will be averted, and for this reason Cope supports the Bill.
The doctrine of separation of powers, as entrenched in our Constitution, will in fact be strengthened with this Bill. Although the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development is politically responsible for the administration of justice in South Africa, this Bill will now place the Chief Justice of South Africa in the driving seat of administrative independence of the courts.
To date there is still a debate as to where the powers of the executive and judiciary are to be separated. The Constitutional Court ruled in the Treatment Action Campaign that "there are no bright lines that separate the roles of the legislature, the executive and the courts from one another". It is for this reason that at times the courts don't understand the politicians, and at times the politicians criticise the judiciary. Perhaps this Bill can also be used as a tool to limit the conflict between the executive and the judiciary when it comes to the administrative functions of the courts. Today South Africans are not interested in the jobs of the registrars in the various courts, or the budget that enables effective administration of the courts. South Africans also don't really know what the separation of powers means, and the study released by TNS South Africa has confirmed this. We just want to win in court and, if we don't, then we easily say at times that the judge was simply biased or inefficient.
TNS South Africa reported that only 31% of the 2 000 people interviewed were of the opinion that judges are indeed impartial. The question that we should thus ask ourselves is how this Bill will influence the perception of society regarding the impartiality of our courts. Unfortunately, and for all the good reasons, this Bill is actually all about the factors in the background and behind the scenes of the court theatre that enable a judge to pass judgement sooner, rather than later. Cope supports this Bill.