Members of the Media,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Good Morning.
 
Thank you for honouring our invitation to this media briefing which precedes the delivery of the budget vote for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development scheduled for later today.
 
Our country continues to traverse through the complex historical legacy of inequality, which denied majority of our people access to justice.  The realisation of this vision of an equitable justice system will also be an enduring tribute to our departed Former President Nelson Mandela, who dedicated 67 years in the pursuit of justice and freedom. As he said, "Freedom would be meaningless without security in the home and in the streets." This is in line with the National Development Plan, which has been adopted by various structures in and outside government as South Africa’s vision leading to 2030, provides the roadmap towards a South Africa where everyone is and feels free.
 
Transformation of the Justice System
 
One of the key programmes aimed at realising equitable access to justice is the transformation of the justice system.
 
There are several specific key milestones registered in this area which include the enactment of the Constitution Seventeenth Amendment Act, the Superior Courts Act and more recently the Legal Practice Bill by our democratic Parliament. These pieces of legislation will strengthen the independence of the judiciary and position the office of the Chief Justice correctly as the head of the judiciary.  During this administration, we will continue to provide support to the Office of the Chief Justice and have initiated several steps with the National Treasury to provide for its separate budget vote in 2015/16.
 
Among the more significant achievement we have made since the advent of democracy is the racial and gender transformation of our judiciary. From one black judge in 1994, we are currently standing at 155 Black judges out of a total of 243.We remain concerned that despite the resolute effort of my predecessors the underrepresentation of women on the bench remains a challenge. During this administration, we will continue to identify and support programmes that are intended to encourage active participation of women in the legal sphere.
 
Fighting Corruption
 
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a visibly growing synergy in the fight against corruption amongst the law enforcement agencies which include the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), the Anti-Corruption Task Team (ACTT), the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) and the Hawks.  This new approach ensures that maladministration where ever it occurs in all spheres is not only exposed but that the guilty are duly punished and not allowed to retain their ill-gotten gains. In 2013/14, the AFU froze assets valued at R452,6 million in acts of corruption involving an amount of more than R5 million. Over the past five years, the amount frozen has totalled R1.466 billion. We intend to tighten the net to send a strong message that crime does not pay.
 
We will explore new ways to extend the fight against corruption through legislation and collaboration. The amendment of the Protected Disclosures Act, 2000, which is under consideration, will extend the protection offered to whistle-blowers. This will assist in early detection of corrupt activities and speedy intervention in the fight against corruption.  
 
The National Prosecuting Authority has steadily shown significant improvement in its mandate of prosecuting those who commit crime without fear, favour or prejudice.  Our 2013/2014 records indicate that there is an average 85% conviction rate in matters related to organised crime and the conviction rate of sexual offences was 66.7%.  I want to assure South Africans that there are effective institutional arrangements in place to ensure that the work of the NPA is not affected by the inquiry relating to the National Director of Public Prosecution’s fitness to hold office that the President has announced recently.  
 
Reduced case backlogs
 
The Department will continue to work with all stakeholders in the criminal justice system to improve court performance and reduce case backlogs. Our regional and district backlog courts have removed 109 419 cases from the court rolls since 1 November 2006 until the end of March 2014 comprising of 79 081 cases finalised, 26 799 cases withdrawn and 3 539 cases transferred to higher courts. 40 regional backlog courts were approved for conversion to permanent courts and 32 courts have already been converted to permanent courts at the end of March 2014.
 
 
Promotion of human rights and the rights of vulnerable people
 
Ladies and gentlemen, together with Chapter 9 institutions and nominated civil society organisations, we launched the National Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Programme in April 2014 to guide our intervention to the growing victimisation of LGBTI persons. We reiterate that our Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
 
We will aggressively continue the fight against sexual violence and aim to establish 12 more sexual offences courts in addition to the 22 that were established last year. Our plan is to re-establish 106 Sexual Offences Courts over a period of 10 years. Through Sexual Offences Courts we are able to provide specialized victim-support services, improve the effectiveness of witnesses in the execution of their role in court; reduce the turnaround time in the finalization of sexual offences matters and improve the conviction rates.
 
Access to Justice
Our turn-around strategy on child and spousal maintenance, Guardian Fund beneficiation and the Small Claims Courts are success stories in our access to justice programme.
A significant number of payments to third parties including maintenance are now processed through Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). There are approximately 9, 5 million transactions to the value of R 3 billion annually.  Over R2 billion was paid to maintenance beneficiaries, the majority of whom are children in the past three years. The EFT system saves time, costs, and reduces the risk of losing the money to criminals and emotional abuse.
 
We have also enhanced the management of our Guardian Fund and improved our service to vulnerable members of society, in particular orphans, who are dependent on the proceeds of the Fund for their livelihood. During 2013/14 this increased to 60 675 beneficiaries being serviced to the amount of R1.130 billion.
 
This year, the department will accelerate the implementation of the Paperless Estate Administration System (PEAS) and Paperless Estate Administration of Trust System (PEAST) which are intended to improve the deceased estate reporting system. This modernisation approach is cost effective and improves service delivery.
 
We will continue to introduce our Small Claims Courts model in the remaining magisterial districts as they are an important vehicle through which people can access justice speedily and at no cost. We are pleased to report that the number of small claims courts increased from 68 in 2009 to 293 in 2013/2014. In this financial year, 30 more small claims courts will be established.
 
In March this year the court-annexed mediation rules which aim to introduce formal mediation in our court system were promulgated. The implementation of these rules will enhance access to justice and introduce an affordable and less adversarial means of settling disputes.  The date for the implementation of these rules has been shifted to 1 December 2014 so as to synchronise the implementation thereof with the impending re-organisation of magisterial districts.
 
45 new courts were built in the past 20 years especially in rural areas and historically Black areas underscore Government’s commitment to access to justice. Among the courts under construction are the Limpopo and Mpumalanga Divisions of the High Court which will start operations in the 2015 and 2016 respectively. I recently visited the construction site of the Mpumalanga High court and was pleased to see that there is significant progress. We will strive to improve collaboration with the Department of Public Works to reduce the infrastructural development and maintenance backlog with a view to enhancing service delivery through our courts.
 
Budget Allocation
We will use the budget voted to our department by Parliament efficiently in the pursuit of equitable access to justice. A total budget of R17,9 billion has been allocated to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development for the 2014/15 financial year. Of this budget allocation R6, 1 billion has been allocated to the Court Services programme, R3, 2 billion is for the NPA and R2, 1 billion for Public Entities and Chapter 9 Institutions. The increase in the budget baseline amounts to R101.6 million for 2014/15, R102.7 million for 2015/16 and R413.9 million for 2016/17.
 
Thank you