COURT RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CRMS)- AN ENABLER FOR JUDICIAL CASE MANAGEMENT(JCM) PRESENTATION BY HON. JUSTICE AB TAFA.

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1 COURT RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CRMS)- AN ENABLER FOR JUDICIAL CASE MANAGEMENT(JCM) PRESENTATION BY HON. JUSTICE AB TAFA. CHAIRPERSON OF THE JUDICIAL CASE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE CRMS USERS CONFERENCE CRESTA MAHALAPYE 21 MAY 2015 THEME: A DECADE OF HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY: CRMS AS AN ENABLER FOR JUDICIAL EXCELLENCE 1

2 CRMS AN ENABLER FOR JCM PRESENTATION BY HON. JUSTICE AB TAFA. CHAIRPERSON OF THE JUDICIAL CASE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE CRMS USERS CONFERENCE 21 MAY CRESTA MAHALAPYE THEME: A DECADE OF HARNESSING TECHNOLOGY: CRMS AN ENABLERFOR JUDICIAL EXCELLENCE Salutations! 1. INTRODUCTION The presentation seeks to demonstrate the synergy between CRMS and JCM, i.e. how CRMS plays a pivotal role towards the efficiency of the court and the delivery of quality and expeditious justice through JCM. This of necessity requires one to lay out the purpose of JCM and how it is enabled by CRMS. CRMS and JCM can be likened to Siamese twins as their objective is the same; they are both tools designed to achieve expeditious delivery of quality service, ie, timeous disposal of a case. It is for this reason that a recommendation was made to the Hon. Chief Justice for the merger of the JCM and CRMS Steering 2

3 Committee;to which the Hon. Chief Justice agreed in principle subject to issues of security being properly addressed. 2. JUDICIAL CASE MANAGEMENT (JCM) As you are aware JCM was introduced in 2008 as a major shift from our old system of managing cases which was litigant driven to a new system which is Judge driven. The basic concept of JCM is for early judicial involvement in identifying the factual and legal issues in dispute between the parties and working with them and their attorneys plan for and manage the conduct of future proceedings. The whole purpose of JCM is to achieve the earliest and cost effective resolution of the dispute. Under JCM, each case coming before the court is assigned immediately upon registration to a Judge who will be in charge of it throughout its life. The Judge sets out a timetable for the expeditious passage of the case through to final judgment. The timetable outlines the progress of the case, giving timelines for various performances by the parties. Our experience from benchmarking, research and practical implementation has shown us that an automated system is a prerequisite for any case management to be workable and effective. One cannot successfully implement case management on a manual system with thousands of cases as one will lose track of the same. 3

4 You will recall that when we started JCM we had our CRMS in pace which had to be reconfigured as a tool to facilitate and accommodate JCM as we envisaged it. 3. COURT RECORDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM(CRMS) As already pointed out, CRMS was introduced in 2005 as an electronic system to modernise and improve the efficiency of our registry operations as the court records had been manual since Independence in HOW CRMS ENABLES JCM CRMS as a comprehensive automated case management information system has features and functionalities which enable JCM as follows: 4.1. AUTOMATIC JUDGE ASSIGNMENT (HIGH COURT) This is a function we have found very useful and fair i.e. the automatic generation of case numbers and assignment of a case to a particular Judge upon registration according to their existing case load. This ensures an equitable distribution of work. The automatic random selection of a Judge by the system avoids/reduces forum shopping for Judges. This functionality has also eliminated the manual production of the composite roll. 4

5 4.2 CASE STATUSLEVELS/REPORTS/STATISTICS / DISPOSAL RATES. The case status functionality depicts the status of cases and indicates how long they have been at that particular stage of the proceedings including those that are ready for trial or due for dismissal. The system is also performance measure as it show how many cases each Judge/Magistrate has disposed of at any given time and the number of postponements the case has suffered. Tracking court performance helps to bring accountability and increases public trust and confidence in the judicial system as well as enhancing the rule of law. A Judicial Officer at the click of abutton is able to monitor the progress of individual cases and his/her disposal rate. Even the Hon. Chief Justice /Supervisor is in a better position to monitor progress of cases including backlog in all the courts SCANNING MODULE This component of the system avails case information to multiple users at the same time. Judicial Officers can access the electronic file on their laptops/desktops. Once fundamental advantage of this function is that electronic images can also be retrieved in the event the manual file cannot be located i.e. the recreation/reconstruction of a case file. 5

6 4.4 TURN AROUND TIMES (HIGH COURT AND MAGISTRATES COURT) The system enables us to calculate and track the disposal rate of cases holistically and per Judicial Officer. 4.5 OTHER FUNCTIONALITIES. The other innovative and helpful features of CRMS that enable JCM are the electronic scheduling of cases, search functionality, recording of outcomes, file tracking, to mention but a few. 5. CONCLUSION CRMS is such a good tool which is the bedrock of our JCM. It has enabled us to do our court business in a smarter way. However, there are surmountable problems which inhibit the full utilisation of the system which can be remedied by imputing correct and accurate data, ensuring that the electronic file is up to date by eliminating the scanning backlog and closing of all the open events. The challenge is for each and everyone us as users to discharge our respective duties to the best of our abilities so that we reap the best out of the system. I thank you. Pula! Pula! Pula! 6