House Chairperson, Deputy Minister of Correctional Services, hon members, I would like to add my voice to those that were heard at the beginning of this session welcoming back the hon Nzimande and wishing him well.
Hon members, thank you very much to all who participated in this debate. It was a useful and informative debate. Certainly, many of the issues that have been raised have been noted by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.
I would like to reiterate once again our gratitude to members of the select committee who interacted very thoroughly with the department on our strategic plan and budget and made very valuable inputs. I would want to touch upon some of the issues that were raised in the course of the debate.
First of all, we can't agree more with the sentiments expressed by the hon Mofokeng and Nesi when they said that it can't be enough for us to be proud that we have put in place a new Constitution, and that we've repealed the laws of apartheid. We must go beyond that. That is really what lies at the heart of our quest to transform the justice system: It is to make a reality of all that's contained in the Constitution.
The Constitution can't live on paper; it must live in the hearts and minds of people; it must live in the everyday reality of people. We must make sure that people know their rights. They must understand their rights, and must have the mechanisms to enforce those rights, as well as the knowledge and assistance to do so. That is what access to justice is about.
Secondly, a number of the issues have been raised by the hon Mofokeng. He raised issues that are critical to the transformation of our legal system as a whole. He touched upon the question of briefing patterns. That is a matter that will be dealt with shortly, when the Legal Practice Bill is introduced in this House. It is also receiving attention. The department has set very definite targets for the briefing patterns of the state with regard to black practitioners. The question of the extension of High Court services and other services to rural areas is something that is receiving the highest attention, as we indicated in our input. That also lies at the heart of our work around the expansion of Small Claims Courts, the conversion of branch courts into full service courts, and the construction of new courts.
With regard to the issue of court judgments with a racial bias, we are aware of those instances where judgments have a definite racial bias. What we can say is that the President has signed the proclamation which puts the Judicial Service Commission Amendment Act into operation from 1 June this year. The commencement of that Act will create a mechanism whereby complaints of that nature can be dealt with. It will also enable Parliament to adopt a code of conduct for judges to ensure that they adhere to the values of the Constitution.
We can also mention that the SA Judicial Education Institute has been established and it's in the process of becoming operational. Once that institute is fully up and running, one of the tasks that it will have will be to give social context training to judicial officers.
The hon member Bekker raised a number of matters relating to the management of cases and backlogs in cases. We have put in place a case flow management system that aims at streamlining those processes. It has also been agreed by judges at the level of both the High Courts and the Magistrates' courts to adopt an approach of judicial case management where the judge will exercise much greater control over the management of cases before his or her court.
Through the implementation of the criminal justice review programme, we have put in place a number of protocols that are designed exactly to make sure that cases go to trial only once they are ready to be tried. In that way, it will speed up those processes. We have had, since 2006, a case backlog project which initially focused only on the regional courts.
That has been a very successful project. It has managed to bring down the levels of case backlogs quite substantially. That project is now being extended to the district courts.
I want to also touch on some of the issues raised by the hon Bekker and hon Gunda: those of the independence of the judiciary and other institutions in our legal system, as well as the making of appointments.
Before I get onto that topic, I would want to recall the words of Mr Paul Graham, the Executive Director of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, Idasa. He was speaking at a memorial service for the late Dr Van Zyl Slabbert, a great South African to whom I pay tribute and to whom we also pay tribute this afternoon in the NA. What Paul Graham said was that at one of the very first gatherings of Idasa, Dr Van Zyl Slabbert gave an input in which he defined three elements of democracy.
I won't speak on all three of them. The one he spoke about was the concept of bounded uncertainty. What he meant was that in negotiating a democratic dispensation it's important to agree upon the ground rules, not necessarily on the outcomes. Once the rules are in place, the game must be played, and whatever outcome emerges from those rules, we must be willing to accept the results.
I want to appeal to hon Bekker and Gunda to apply that wisdom of the late Dr Van Zyl Slabbert. We have negotiated the Constitution. We have put in place the rules, the structures and the mechanisms such as the Judicial Service Commission, JSC. We have given the President certain powers of appointment. Let us stick to those rules.
No one here has made a cogent argument that in any one of those instances the rules have not been followed. People are unfortunately not happy with the outcomes. That is fundamentally undemocratic, and can I say, in the case of the DA, it's fundamentally illiberal to object to the structures and the rules when you are not happy with the outcomes. Please, let us respect the outcomes of our democratic processes.
The hon Gunda came here blazing. I know that three minutes can be challenging to make a sensible input, but please bear in mind the words of the English writer, George Eliot, who tells us that:
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
But that is said on a lighter note. I think the political point that members wanted to make has been made. They haven't necessarily scored those points. We hope that our team will have greater success in scoring them! I have heard. But on a serious note, I think we should refrain from making the important issues of justice, our constitutional democracy and the fight against crime something that is the subject of cheap politicking.
Overall, the debate has been conducted in a good atmosphere and in a constructive manner. We thank all members for that, and we thank you for your support for the budget. I thank you. [Applause.]