The Office of the Chief Justice says 233 officials including judges tested positive for COVID-19 since the outbreak of the virus last year, with four fatalities.
This was revealed by the Director for Court Administration Services in the Office of the Chief Justice, Nathi Mncube. He was responding to questions from Members of Parliament’s Justice and Correctional Services Committee. The Office appeared before the committee to brief it about its annual performance plan for the financial year under review.
Mncube elaborates, “The OCJ (Office of the Chief Justice) as a whole we have not been seriously affected in terms of (COVID-19) infections. The total number so far of confirmed positive cases since the beginning of the lockdown in March last year is standing at 233. So, these are the people who (including), officials and judges, have been infected but most of them have recovered.”
Mncube adds ,”We have about four deaths only since then. At this point in time, we are operating, we have implemented what we call the rotational system where some officials would come in on a certain number of days and others would work from home, though generally most of the officials in terms of the work that we do, we are unable to work from home. Interpreters, for example, it is impossible for them to work from home. General office, it’s also impossible to work remotely.
So we are keeping the numbers in terms of rotational basis, very minimal and for instance, in one of the courts it is 90% and others at 70% but on average in terms of people who report for duty on a daily basis, is about 60%. I must hasten to say that the issue of rotational basis is done after consulting with the head of court. So, the head of court in terms of the Judge President will be informed to say that, I think this is what we should implement. They would then agree or disagree with that at least advise how that process should be implemented so that it doesn’t affect service delivery,” says Mncube.
