a) As part of monitoring of administrative support to the courts the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DoJ&CD) has included a Key performance indicator on the Annual Performance Plan which is monitored monthly. The Department has set a target that in less than 0.3 % in criminal cases the main cause of postponement of the case should relate to the unavailability of court administrative officials essential to a court sitting relating to Indigenous language as well as Foreign language interpreters as well as court recording system operators.
The performance in relation to this indicator for the period 1 April - 30 April 2021 is a National average of 0.14% against the 0.3% target.
See breakdown into regions and District and regional courts as per table below:
b) The Department is appointing interpreters as and when positions become vacant. The Regional Heads have delegations to advertise and fill the vacancies where required. Currently, the Department has a vacancy rate of 7.7%. The table below depicts the number of positions on the establishment, number of posts filled as well as the number of vacant positions:
Job Title |
Filled Posts |
Vacant Posts |
Total Posts |
Vacancy Rate |
Court Interpreter |
1 262 |
88 |
1 350 |
6.5 |
Senior Court Interpreter |
396 |
49 |
445 |
11.0 |
Court Interpreter Principal |
63 |
8 |
71 |
11.3 |
Assistant Director: Court Interpreting |
32 |
1 |
33 |
3.0 |
Deputy Director: Court Interpreting |
6 |
1 |
7 |
14.3 |
TOTAL |
1 759 |
147 |
1 906 |
7.7 |
In relation to Foreign Language Interpreters and Sign Language Interpreters, they are sourced from the database as and when they are required, paid a daily allowance for appearance in court.