Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng President Mandisa Maya Judge President Dunstan Mlambo

1. BRICS ICT SEMINAR PRESENTATION ICT Challenges and Solutions in the South African Judiciary 25 October 2019 Chief Justice MogoengMogoeng President Mandisa Maya Judge President Dunstan Mlambo

2. Introduction and Presentation Overview • Context of ICT in the SA Judiciary • Challenges due to absence of ICT in the Courts • Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) ICT Governance Structure • Benefits of Digitization in the Courts • ICT Developments in SA - Immediate and Long-term • E-Filing and CaseLines 1

3. Context of ICT in the SA Judiciary • The South African Courts have not kept abreast with technological advances for their administration processes. Until very recently, Information Communication Technology (ICT) has been nearly non-existent except for the limited use of the Integrated Case Management System (ICMS) web based program utilised for the supervision of caseloads and coordinated case planning and case management in both the lower courts i.e. magistrates courts and the Superior Courts. Case management systems are practically manual and outdated court administration processes, which employ hard copies, including case dockets, case files and judgments are still used. • 2

4. Challenges due to absence of ICT in the Courts • The absence of information technology in the Courts results in a number of critical challenges which hamper their efficiency and the public’s access to justice. • Some of the key problems are: • A massive accumulation of paper records which are extremely difficult to manage; the situation is so bad that four years ago already the mountains of paper could fill many many football fields and they keep growing. • Diminishing and congested file archiving space. • 3

5. Inordinate delays in Court processes from case initiation to hearing stage arising from time consuming manual preparation of court documentation first, by legal representatives who spend long spans of time preparing and submitting court bundles, paginations and redactions to evidence for manual management of documentation outside the courts, and secondly manual processing of evidence within the courts i.e. the manual presentation of evidence and sharing of paper-based documentation which increases the time spent searching through documentation for presentation of evidence. • 4

6. An alarming scale of misfiled, lost and stolen Court files facilitated by the difficulty in keeping track of all the paper, which often results in convictions and sentences being set aside – a possible miscarriage or travesty of Justice. • Long queues and crowded Registrar’s offices by legal representatives and members of the public for issuing of cases, filing of process, sourcing of Court orders etc. • Growing trends of court staff corruption in respect of case enrolment, non-existent claimants, fraudulent court orders and the inability to speedily detect bogus and disqualified legal representatives appearing in Courts etc. • Difficulty in the allocation of work to Judges and Magistrates, tracking Court sitting times, postponements and reasons therefor, workload spread, case finalization, reserved judgments and judgment turnaround times. • 5

7. Long delays in the procurement of costly transcription of court records for appeal purposes. • Judges and Magistrates having to transcribe evidence and oral submissions during court proceedings in manuscript, verbatim, in case the record is lost or the recording is faulty. • Society’s perception of Courts as inefficient. • An ageing intranet infrastructure, which is unstable and does not provide a secure platform for the sharing of sensitive documents over the internet. • 6

8. OCJ IT Governance Framework CHIEF JUSTICE HEADS OF COURT (Superior and Magistrates Courts) JOC DOJ & CD JAIT IJS JCFMC EXCO SG SITA CIO 7

9. BENEFITS OF DIGITIZATION IN THE COURT 8

10. Benefits of Digitization 1. Improved access to information, reporting, data collection, record keeping and caseflow enhancements Digitization – • Enhances access to case related information through public portals • Enables access to high quality interpretation services via an audio-visual facility, postponements and long distance evidence taking • Facilitates improved reporting, as a result of the ready-availability of data, and enables the relevant role players, including the Judiciary, to better prioritise the scheduling of cases, monitoring of their progression and finalisation 9

11. Benefits of Digitization 1. Improved access to information, reporting, data collection, record keeping and caseflow enhancements (Continued) • Facilitates improved tracking of trial or hearing progression, reserved judgments, the age analysis and the reporting thereof • Facilitates generation of Courts and Judges’ and Magistrates’ performance reports • Facilitates online discussions platforms for Judges sitting together in appeals and other Full Court allocations • facilitates enhanced case flow management processes through automated timetables and notifications 10

12. Benefits of Digitization 2. Recording and Transcribing • Digital recording of proceedings facilitates immediate electronic transcription of records, especially noting advances in voice recognition technology • Offsite record storage capacity to preserve Court records in case of destruction or loss of onsite records • The current practice of Judges and Magistrates recording proceedings in manuscript, verbatim, will become redundant, as the possibility of losing the recording is minimal • Judges and Magistrates will therefore have time to make analytical notes that will aid decision making • The immediate availability of the recordings and transcripts to interested parties will facilitate their ongoing preparation, and the conduct of the overall case • Processing of appeal matters, noting the efficient and timeous generation of electronic transcripts (written and audio) will improve • This will result in the reduction of appeal backlogs • It is cost-effective 11

13. ICT Developments in SA 12

14. CASELINES & e-FILING • The South African Courts are finally joining the digital realm. After extensive study tours conducted in Russia, China, Malaysia, Qatar, Singapore and the USA, the Judiciary took a decision in November 2018 to pilot an electronic filing (e-Filing) system in the Courts, to manage, secure and ensure the sharing of records online and thereby address the inefficiencies currently experienced in the Courts and improve the quality of court services to the public. • Towards that end, Phase 1 of the two-phase project (Phase 2 being end-to-end e-Filing) has begun with the implementation of CaseLines, a cloud-based collaboration solution that offers digitalization and management of old and current files and court evidence for optimized • 13

15. court proceedings. A pilot project that deals only with trial ready matters at this stage, is successfully running in the Pretoria and Johannesburg High Courts and will be rolled out to other courts across the country shortly. This solution optimizes court proceedings by, among other features, allowing bulk and high security storage, archiving and management of documentation online; an efficient version control and a fully traceable audit trail of track changes made to all court files, a convenient cloud-based collaboration on cases among legal representatives and the court, lowering the risk of corrupted evidence, providing accessible paperless processes and increasing productivity in the courts by freeing up staff from manual, time-consuming processing of court documents. • 14

16. PHASE ONE - IMPLEMENTATION OF CASELINES • Partial Implementation of CaseLines • IT Infrastructure context dictates – • Commence with Trial Ready matters – e-Filing partly in abeyance • - Pilot Project in Gauteng – Opposed Motions and Unopposed Motions and one Full Court Appeal • Pilot Results – Exposed some gaps but Judges and those Lawyers whose case were selected are very positive • 4th Term 2019 – Expanded rollout of CaseLines in the Gauteng Province • - Applications e.g. Opposed Motions, Special Motions, 3rd Court Motions, Unopposed Motions and Full Court Appeals • New and Pending Trials matters will continue as usual until the eFiling Component is ready • However parties may apply for such matters to be run on CaseLines • Commencing with Project Implementation in other High Court Divisions from 4th Term 2019 • Key to success of CaseLines implementation • – Lawyer readiness and aptitude as well as availability of resources • – Wi-Fi and hardware • – scanning and uploading • 15

17. CASELINES – Digitisation of old and current court files & Litigation platform OCJ CASE FOR CHANGE OCJ TARGET OUTCOMES INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY TO FREE STAFF TIME FOR LAW FIRMS SCALABLE PAPERLESS PROCESSES TRACK CHANGES MADE TO ALL COURT FILES WITH VERSION CONTROL HIGH SECURITY STORAGE OF DOCUMENTATION ONLINE SECURELY COLLABORATE ON CASES 16

18. WHAT IS CASELINES CaseLines is an advanced cloud-based collaboration solution that offers digitalization of evidence in the court. Courts across SA deal with cases handled in a variety of magnitudes, from small to large. These cases deal with an immense volume of paper handled within each court hearing. CaseLines aims to seamlessly manage court evidence for optimised proceedings. CaseLines aims to optimise court proceedings by: • Allowing enormous bulk storage of evidence bundles • Build specifically for the legal environment • Handling cases of all magnitudes • Simple user friendly interface • Fully traceable audit trail – effortless version control • Convenient cloud-based collaboration • High level of security based on proven technology • Lowering the risk of corrupted evidence • CaseLines proven track record in Global markets: • Currently over 30 000 users across the legal space • 1 500+ judges use this system globally • Works in multiple courts with thousands of users • More than 300 000 cases have been conducted digitally using CaseLines 17

19. PHASE TWO – e-FILING SYSTEM • Implementation of an e-Filing system by the OCJ • Key deliverables include: • Actual development or customization of the e-Filing system • Deployment of the e-Filing system to the OCJ data centre (SITA) • Piloting of a functioning system to ensure that issues are addressed • Training of users at the nine provincial divisions • Provision of support and maintenance of the system • The e-Filing system constitutes part of the digital justice system and includes all capabilities for managing, storing, publishing and retrieval of case files, case documentation, evidence, court orders, judgments and other relevant documentation • Implementation will be on a pilot basis as well, starting in the second half of 2019 • 18

20. CHALLENGES IN CASELINES PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION • Importance of change management – resistance to change by older generation Judges, Magistrates and Court staff • Engaging a skeptical legal fraternity – they want to dictate what to implement • Importance of training, a help desk and self help user guides – for staff, the legal fraternity and unrepresented litigants • Importance of appropriate ICT infrastructure – need for appropriate bandwidth size, fibre, a secure and stable email platform, a stable and adequate Wi-Fi connectivity • Timeous rule reforms to encompass electronic process e.g configuration of electronic appeal records • Budgetary constraints are always a challenge – currently only the Gauteng and KZN High Courts and the SCA have fibre and Wi-Fi • 19

21. Other features of the South African courts modernisation project include infrastructural upgrades such as the installation of Wi-Fi, the Mimecast email system, digital displays of the court rolls for easy access by interested parties and to eliminate the use of paper, the replacement of all copper network data lines with optic fibre and the installation of cables that will provide higher network speed. As mentioned, the full implementation of the ICT project has been beset by budgetary constraints and other challenges. It may therefore take the South African Courts some time to implement Phase 2 and achieve the optimal benefits of digitization. But in the meantime they are run as best as is possible with the available resources. 20