A shaynem dank dir im pupik

Through gritted teeth I say, before you address the failings of anything or lay blame for everything, such as is found in the National Planning Commission 30 page Draft Overview, please, realise, understand, I beg you, everything, the entire country, success, revolves around one aspect and that is, the effective and efficient administration of Justice

This column is about the latest cover story on IWeek, the Editorial Comment regarding the cover story, another article in IWeek, to the effect The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DJCD) will focus on the use of ICT to implement a financial turnaround strategy, and the release of the National Planning Commission 30 page Draft Overview.

The commission is an advisory body tasked with preparing recommendations for the Cabinet on issues affecting South Africa’s long-term development.

I have read the latter from cover to cover gobbling it up.

Regarding the IWeek cover and the editorial, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) launched the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) last year, SANSA says space investment will advance society and bring economic benefits.

IWeek goes on to report several questions have been raised by opposition parties and parliamentary portfolio committee members, around whether money pumped into space initiatives, will not be better spent on more critical needs, like housing and food.

There are fears SANSA is a funding black hole (initially R600 million a year to run SANSA) and should be privately funded.

Jeff Radebe is quoted in ITWeb, on the turnaround strategy for Justice, “we are also taking initiatives to enhance the capacity of the court administration through the Court Capacitation Project of the Justice Sector Strengthening Programme, which is an USAID-funded project.”

“Interventions that form part of the turnaround strategy include the implementation of drastic measures to stamp out corruption, online databases to address the credibility of the administration of insolvent estates, the rollout of the ICMS Masters (Integrated Case Management System) to all masters' offices.”

Which, is where my brain goes, “a shaynem dank dir im pupik”!

I was in Johannesburg last week on my way back from external travel having meetings at my favourite spot.

I bumped into the attorney representing my foe in a High Court matter who upon seeing me immediately apologised thus “sorry Bart but you are a victim of the court system”.

I have a client in New Zealand who has been defrauded of over R9 million. The perpetrator has been subject to a liquidation proceeding which has been held in secret.

The lawyers representing my client have applied to the Master to lift the secrecy restrictions. Months later, in both instances we both wait, me for a date for a simple exception hearing over six months, and my client for a simple signature.

Purely per chance the other day I stumbled on the website of a man, locked in a soul sapping 13 year battle, for equitable treatment by a major bank and Justice from the State.

I noticed on the site that this man was requesting information from the Master, related to another case entirely, from files in the Gauteng High Court.

“In the file are two Court Orders, from two separate Judges, dealing with documents that must be discovered by the bank, there are no such documents in the Court file. The last document in the Court file is dated 12th June 2009. It is a NOTICE IN TERMS OF RULE 35 (3) requesting that “working papers” and “… signed off financial statements ...” be discovered.

There are no such documents in the Court file.

Case No. 22420/2002 BK Spitz vs FirstRand Limited. This file has not been located.

Through gritted teeth I say, before you address the failings of anything or lay blame for everything, such as is found in the National Planning Commission 30 page Draft Overview, please, realise, understand, I beg you, everything, the entire country, success, revolves around one aspect and that is, the effective and efficient administration of Justice.

It is when you ensure, that the rules and laws and rights, that were put in place, to achieve the goals and aims, so hopelessly lacking as described in the documents referred to, are enforced and upheld that all else will follow.

Get it?

Nowhere in the National Planning Commission 30 page Draft Overview is the catastrophic failing of our Justice System even mentioned and the impact this has on our present and future?

If due process functioned, if Administrative Justice worked, if corruption was stamped out, our aspirations as a nation would be met!

There is after all something chronically askew in a nation that pays a police constable the equivalent of the minimum wage, paid to a cleaner employed by Eskom.

There is something fundamentally out of kilter when the State, a Ruling Party and its various organs, have as a policy, unwritten or otherwise, a philosophy of “plausible deniability”, designed with one purpose in mind and that is to obstruct or attempt to deny the rights awarded, or afforded citizens, by inefficient Courts, whose inefficiency both entrench and serve that precise purpose.

So thanks to the National Planning Commission for confirming what most already know?

Thanks for the prospect of a prestigious Space Program in the interim. It is patently obvious we need one, when we have demonstrated admirably, our inability to keep our feet on the ground.

We need hope; we don’t need to be shown, yet another bloody bellybutton.