Chairperson, Judge Yacoob, representing the Constitutional Court, Judge-President Mpathi from the Supreme Court of Appeal, all our esteemed judges, and all members of the justice family stretching around the room, and hon Minister: This hon Minister is the Minister of everything. Not only is he in charge of the Justice, Crime Prevention and Security cluster, but he is his party's head of policy. I have no doubt that he is therefore seized with the problems of a very great many Ministries. However, with respect, sir, that is no excuse for the state of the courts and some other justice entities.
We still observe the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. Under the present system, he is responsible not for judicial functions, but for ordinary, old-fashioned administration, as well as justice policy. Regarding policy, he tables the right justice laws and he says the right things, even when that requires the repudiation of his colleagues on questions like the separation of powers. He therefore appears to be on the side of the constitutionalists in the ruling party - except at the Judicial Service Commission, to which I will return. However, he must also answer for administration.
It is my view that there are two causes for the failure of administration in South Africa in general, and in justice in particular. The brutal budget cuts - R600 million, cumulatively - will make it worse, but they are not the root cause. These two reasons are the real root cause: The first is the appointment of the wrong people and the second is the miserable inadequacy of the IT systems. I regret the JCPS cluster has not made the strides just claimed by the hon Minister. It has barely started stumbling along. I want to illustrate both root causes - appointments and the IT systems - by using examples from two entities.
Regarding the first factor, the appointment of the wrong people, the entity I address today is not the National Prosecuting Authority, for obvious reasons. Nevertheless, let me say that the proposals I made in the 2010 Budget Vote about a new appointment procedure for the National Director of Public Prosecutions still stand. Section 179 needs to be amended.
The entity I do wish to address is the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, to which my colleague briefly referred. There, Deputy Judge President Mojapelo warned the department in 2011, following warnings in 2010 and repeated to the portfolio committee in 2012, that the total collapse of discipline among staff members, who were committing offences - including crimes - would lead to the collapse of services. He warned that corruption in the Registrar's Office, including the issuing of fraudulent court orders, was rampant. Yet, by February 2011 there had not been a single conviction at criminal level, and no disciplinary action had been taken in 10 years! Indeed, suspects - even those caught red-handed and arrested - were back on duty and in the court corridors within a few days.
How is this possible? It is possible in a city where jobs in justice are sold. They are sold. The going rate is R7 000. Indeed, the situation then becomes predictable. When you hire on the basis of corruption, you will see further corruption. I have furnished details to the director-general, in whom I have confidence, of what whistle-blowers have told me about job- selling at the level of the magistrates' courts in Johannesburg, but with protection from higher administrative levels. It is therefore possible - probably plausible, but let us say it is possible - that the same occurs at the High Court level. All I can say to the hon Minister is that we need to clean up.
I now come to the second reason for the failure of service delivery in South Africa. The Auditor-General, in a general report on audit outcomes until last March, pointed out that government departments generally were heavily reliant on IT systems for, inter alia, their administrative functions - also financial and reporting, but administrative. However, around 80% of them did not have governance frameworks or security systems fully in place. The basic problem is now clear to me, sir, and to all of us, I think. It can be summed up in four letters: Sita. The SA State Information Technology Agency itself has said that its services are expensive, non-value-adding and a burden. It said so when the latest turnaround strategy was adopted in 2010. It has had 14 CEOs in 10 years, yet all departments have to use Sita.
Judges from the Supreme Court of Appeal downwards struggle with intolerably slow computers, when they have computers at all, and when the Sita networks are available at all and have not, once again, been crippled by server crashes. At the Johannesburg High Court, the registrar's staff for civil trials suffered the failure of the computerised High Court system, which was supposed to send notification of trial dates automatically. So, fax and e-mail was then used, but by last February the fax machine had broken and was not replaced for months.
At that stage the registrar of civil trials was writing notifications in long hand, sometimes relying on attorneys' messengers to come and collect them! Often, dates allocated for trial came and went before parties were notified. At this rate of progress, we should be looking at carrier pigeons instead of the integrated IT systems postulated for the criminal justice system under the seven-point plan adopted in 2007.
By welcome contrast - and here is the other entity - Legal Aid South Africa took the straightforward decision soon after Judge Dunstan Mlambo took over its board to acquire and maintain its own IT system and it has worked "wonderfully", to quote him. The only pressure is bandwidth, because so many people have come onto their system.
Lasa is successful in every way because it is run by an impressive executive team of people and staff. Judges Mlambo and Mojapelo will make a wonderful team in Gauteng with, I think, influence in the northern provinces beyond, from which they both hail. Lasa has asked only to join Sita's procurement system, and I think that is what Sita was originally created for. It demonstrably cannot run platforms.
It is now a matter of urgency that the hon Minister should ensure that both of the above problems are resolved. The only answer is to create the proposed Independent Administrative Agency, which the judges want for the institutionally independent judicial branch and which is being drafted. The Minister is going to give them the independent agency, but here is the problem, sir: that agency will not be able to make a truly fresh start, because the whole programme of court services will move across and the independent agency, with new management appointed by the judges, will inherit the problem personnel along with the good staff.
As for IT, the courts' integrated case management system - the thing that is now starting to stumble along - is supposed to link electronically with the NPA's electronic case management system, as are the police and the prisons. Now, it stands to reason that they will all have to work off one platform, and I think it is necessary to say now that it cannot be a Sita platform. So, Minister, please make the change now. In fact, you need to make it for all government departments. In addition, by the way, do not give IT governance frameworks to the intelligence services, as you have proposed. [Interjections.] It is a bad idea. The hon Burgess will disagree with me, but it is a bad idea. It should sit under the Department for Public Service and Administration.
Lastly, the hon Minister must take direct responsibility also for all appointments. That applies not only to the bottom, but also to the top. Sir, I am the last person to wish to erode the standing of any of our independent bodies. However, the JSC is in crisis when qualified candidates no longer come forward. There is just no argument. In a statement on 24 April, the JSC itself begged people to come forward. It could shortlist only three people for the six vacancies in Gauteng. We know what has happened at the Constitutional Court - four aspirants to shortlist could not be found.
When I asked the hon Minister in committee whether he or the hon Ramatlhodi was in charge of the political voting bloc at the JSC, he said that he was not aware of such a bloc and that commissioners voted by secret ballot after deliberation. I have taken note of what he has repeated today, and I have respect for the hon Minister. However, I am afraid that no one will be persuaded that there is no such bloc. So, therefore, forgive me if I say that if the usual suspects at party headquarters are dictating ANC choices for the JSC from the NA and the National Council of Provinces, why is the hon Burgess no longer on the JSC?
If it is the case that the usual suspects at Luthuli House are dictating the choices made here and also dictating the choices of judges made there at the JSC, then the hon Minister of Everything is the Minister of Nothing. [Interjections.] It is one thing to create the right form for an independent judicial branch, and it will be his monument. The Constitutional Seventeenth Amendment Bill, the Superior Court Bill, the Judicial Council Bill and the Independent Administrative Agency Bill will be his monument. They all emanate from the judiciary, but he has tabled them. We will legislate them, and they will be, in the end, his monument and that, I hope, of the judicial branch.
It is one thing to create the right form for a truly institutionally independent judicial branch, but if the form has no substance because the wrong people are appointed from the top to the bottom, then it is an empty exercise. [Applause.]
HON MEMBERS: Hear, hear!