Courts to say how long cases expected to take-● Review laws and create scheme for staff |22 April 2010

It will also seek the revision of a number of laws, automate gathering of information and work on its public image while seeking a better scheme of service for its staff.

Justice Egonda-Ntende said this in an interview with Nation at the end of a workshop funded by the United Nations Development Fund and attended by police officers, prisons officials, social workers, state counsels, court staff, members of the National Assembly and of the Seychelles Bar Association.

The four-day workshop conducted by lecturers from the Seychelles Institute of Management was aimed at devising new plans and strategies for the judiciary.

“We have committed the organisation to work in a specific number of areas and optimise case disposition, automate the gathering of case data and work on our public image by concentrating on customer care and an improved service,” judge Egonda-Ntende said.

“We are going to work on the setting up of time standards so that people have a certain expectation and can say, ‘if I file a case in court this is my expectation’.

“That standard is in relation to what the Constitution asks us to do, which is to provide a trial within a reasonable time. Obviously right now we don’t meet such a standard”

“We hope in the final run what we’ll do will vindicate what we are saying when we say we are working to improve.”
He said the workshop also set out a number of areas where the revision of laws will be sought including of the Court Procedures Act, Legal Practitioners’ Act and the Legal Aid Act.

“We agreed to work on and improve staff relations – between management and court staff. We intend to propose to government that there is a separate scheme of service for staff of the judiciary because of the nature of court services.
 If we are to train and retain our people we need to create promotional avenues allowing staff to have a life-time with the courts during which they will make progress.

“At the moment there are only two levels – court reporter and chief court reporter. We hope to create several grades from court reporter and other ranks to senior, principal and chief court reporter and link these with compensation according to a person’s seniority,” he said.

Mr Egonda-Ntende said the workshop also discussed productivity-based compensation.
“It has been hard work since we started but we can say the harder part has now started but I’m glad we now have a strategic plan which we have agreed upon so they are not just my ideas but those of the organisation,” he said.