Chief justice decries staff shortage
The Office of the Judiciary’s annual magistrates’ conference started in Windhoek yesterday under the theme ‘The Changing Face of the Magistracy: Balancing Independence and Accountability.’
The three-day conference, which brings together magistrates from lower courts around Namibia, aims to review their performance in the previous year and plan for the year ahead.
Chief Justice Peter Shivute, in a speech delivered on his behalf, said this year’s theme intends to strengthen compliance with judicial ethics and come up with ways of improving integrity and accountability among judicial officers.
This will enhance justice for all and bolster public confidence in the justice system.
“The theme also aims to remind us of our constitutional mandate to do justice to all our people, especially the vulnerable and the less able segments of our society, who are in most cases unable to benefit from the justice system,” Shivute said.
He also drew attention to the high number of unfilled magistrate vacancies in various district courts, noting that the inadequacy in staffing has greatly affected access to justice as the few available judicial officers can only handle a certain percentage of the workload and cannot sufficiently meet the justice needs of the majority, especially those in remote areas of the country.
He called on officials to ensure that all funded vacancies are filled.
Some of the issues that the conference will deliberate on are the judiciary’s initiatives to improve the speed of delivery of justice, access to the courts, as well as access to legal representation.
With regard to this, Shivute said plans are already underway to extend the divorce jurisdiction to the regional courts, a jurisdiction that is currently exclusive to the High Court, meaning divorce proceedings are only attended to in two courts countrywide – the Oshakati and Windhoek high courts.
“Once implemented, this initiative will relieve pressure on the court as well as reduce costs associated with traveling for litigants that reside at a distance to any of these divisions,” he said, adding that plans are further underway to implement small claim courts to promote greater access to justice for the community at minimal costs.