House Chair,
The ACDP notes with concern that the operational budget of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development is reduced by a staggering R5 billion over the medium term.
Now, most speakers have very adequately expounded on the challenges, Minister, that the department faces, as well as the various entities reporting to Parliament, such as the NPA, Legal Aid South Africa, etc. My experience has been that Members of Parliament receive constituency queries continually, and I want to just highlight one aspect which relates to criminal matters – where you have victims of crime – as was very passionately explained by the honourable member from ActionSA – where it impacts families having to go back to Court over and over again. The criminal court backlogs are unacceptable and must be reduced.
Deputy Minister, you touched on maintenance. New Members of Parliament will be inundated with maintenance queries. Women that are reliant on those funds having to take off work (if they’ve got work) to go to Court, and then their matters are not finalised. This needs urgent attention.
Another matter, particularly given the high levels of domestic violence in our country, is domestic violence interdicts. Now, there are online platforms that can be used, but are they working? Are the police implementing those interdicts that are obtained. How many women are assaulted or even murdered where they already have obtained domestic violence interdicts that are ineffective? This is crucial, honourable Minister.
Then, there is the issue relating to state attorneys. Now, we know we have a massive budget deficit and state finances are constrained. State attorneys conduct litigation for state departments. During the Police Budget debate the other day, we heard that the Police paid R2.2 billion in compensation. That would have been as a result of court cases or settlements. The question is at what point are those cases settled – like, for example, the RAF matters or like medico legal matters? Are they settled at the door of the court when private lawyers have incurred hundreds of thousands of rand in legal costs, or are they settled as soon as you know that you have no defence on the merits of the case? That is an aspect that needs to be looked at and that could save a lot of state funds.
Honourable Minister, you also serve on the cabinet body that disburses funds from the Criminal Asset Recovery Account (CARA). I would plead with you to ensure that funds are disbursed from CARA to these crime fighting units that are struggling with reduced budgets. The SIU received a R171 million reduction, and that doesn’t make sense to me as they can recover billions of rands of ill-gotten gains. Why would you cut their budget? Make sure they are fully equipped.
Likewise with the NPA when it comes to the Asset Forfeiture Unit. They can also collect billions of Rands sitting in local or overseas bank accounts. It makes no sense to me. Please ensure that they’re given the resources so that they can collect the billions.
They need more funding, not less!
I thank you.
