Justice and Constitutional Development, DCS & OCJ BRRR

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed all the Members present and indicated that the Committee will consider the draft Budgetary Review and Recommendations Reports (BRRRs).

The Committee will go through the reports page by page to see if they are a true reflection of the changes made in the last sitting.

Draft BRRR on the Department of Correctional Services

It was highlighted that the pages were not dated and that must be corrected.

Minor grammatical errors were corrected.

Mr W Horn (DA) referred to paragraph 9.11, and commented that the report makes it seem like all the 41 of the appeals received were successful but when the officials appeared before the Committee they had stated that only a few (5-6) were actually so. This should be double checked by the Content Advisor and corrected.

After reviewing the full document, the Chairperson asked what Members thought of the document at its present stage.

Ms G Breytenbach (DA) said she would take it to her caucus.

The document was adopted with amendments.

Draft BRRR on the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development

The Committee went through the document page by page without making any major corrections.

Observations

Mr Horn noted that it was proposed that the Committee should support the proposals for assistance to Legal Aid South Africa; the mood in the committee at the time was also in favour for such assistance for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) as well. 

The Chairperson was of the opinion that it might have been reflected in the recommendations which is yet to be covered.

Ms Christine Silkstone, Committee Content Advisor, suggested that the Committee should make a recommendation to Parliament to look into revising the time frames currently in place to conclude the BRRR process because of the amount of work needed to produce the document.

Members agreed with her assertion.

When the Chairperson called for the adoption of the report, Ms Breytenbach said she will take it to her caucus.

The report was adopted with amendments.

Draft BRRR on the Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ)

The Committee went through the draft page by page without making any major corrections.

Recommendations

The OCJ report and the recommendations were adopted.

Members thanked the Content Advisor and the Committee Secretary for a job well done.

Committee Programme

Mr Horn asked if there is a programme for the remainder of the year and if it could be shared because there should be some kind of planning.

The Chairperson asked Members to forward issues they would want to discuss to her and promised to liaise with the Secretariat to develop a plan and send it to Committee Members by Tuesday next week.

The meeting was adjourned.