More than 1,000 posts are vacant in the lower and higher courts of South Africa – including presiding officers and court officials – some of them for more than a year, the Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola has revealed.
Lamola said, in response to a question in Parliament from the Democratic Alliance, that there were 889 vacant posts in the lower court and 163 in the higher courts, totalling 1,052.
“We cannot accept these vacancies while our people, especially our women and children, are being held to ransom on a daily basis due to heinous acts of violent crime,” the DA said in a statement today.
“The annual crime statistics report revealed staggering increases in our rape and murder rates – now is not the time for an incapacitated judiciary. Our courts can only hope to hold perpetrators to account if they are functioning at full capacity – and not lacking in hundreds of presiding officers and administrative staff.
The DA said it would will conduct oversight inspections at some of the lower and higher court “to assess what more can be done to ensure South Africans are able to trust and depend on our Judiciary to deliver them the justice they deserve, by holding perpetrators accountable for their actions.”