Justice, Prison Affairs and Constitutional Reforms Minister Dr. Wijeyedasa Rajapakshe told Parliament yesterday that 33 percent of the cases before High Court are related to child abuse and sexual abuse against women.
Accordingly out of 29,723, one third of the number of cases 9,862 in the High Court are related to child abuse and sexual abuse against women.Out of those 9,862 cases, 5,550 cases are related to child abuse and 4,312 cases are related to sexual abuse against women.He said this while joining the adjournment debate on delays in Judicial Proceedings in Courts and reasons related to it
He said that the next most cases are related to murder and attempted murder and narcotic cases. Accordingly there are 3,286 cases of murder and attempted to murder and 3,376 cases of narcotics.
The Minister said that 22 percent of the High Court cases are related to murders, attempted murders and narcotic cases.According to this, 55 percent of the cases in the High Court are cases of child abuse sexual abuse against women, murder, attempted murder and narcotic.
The Minister said that there are more than 1,175 vacancies in the Judicial Service Commission alone and according to the request made for two years, approval was given to recruit 250 newcomers in the last few days.
The delay in the cases in the courts cannot be justified. There is no right to justify that either. The delay in the cases did not happen in one day. Great Britain also had this problem 808 years ago.There are only 18 judges per million people in our country. Compared to the developed countries of the world, this percentage is at a low level.The Judicial Service Commission and the Justice Ministry have conducted a study and requested that 174 more courts should be established by 2022. However, with the country’s economic situation, it is not possible to start with a large number. We are working to establish another thirty courts in the future. A court complex will be opened in Ratnapura on July 11. At present, 17 judges are constantly hearing cases in four courtrooms after increasing the number of judges in the Supreme Court by the 20th Amendment. There are 5,482 cases pending at the moment. The number of cases available for one judge is 322. The number of judges in the Court of Appeal is 20 and 10 Appeal courts are functioning at the moment. By the end of 2022, the number of cases was 3,423. One judge has to solve 171 cases.
There are 22 institutions in the Civil Appellate High Court and the number of existing cases is 6,800. There are four commercial high courts. Another one will be established within the next month or two. Paying attention to the commercial court is very important for the economy. The number of cases pending in Commercial Court is 8,376. Out of them, 5,808 cases are for implementation of arbitral awards. There are 2,568 cases for enquiry and 488 cases are per judge. There are 48 criminal high courts and 29,723 cases are pending there. There are 61 district courts and 263,481 cases are pending there. 803,642 cases are pending in Magistrate Courts and 1108 cases are pending in Children’s Magistrate’s Court. 5,225 cases are in Labor Tribunals. Thus, the total number of cases is 1127265 pending in the courts.
The number of judges from the Supreme Court to the Magistrate Court is 399.There are 9862 cases in total related to child abuse and sexual abuse aaginst women. We as Sri Lankans should be ashamed of this.We must take steps to stop these crimes and abuses. In the past, laws were strictly enforced. 27 Children and Narcotics Acts have been passed. Another 30-40 Acts have been presented. The next highest number of cases are murder and attempted murder and 3286 cases are at present.There are 3376 cases of narcotic. The issue of amnesty goes to a person who has been convicted according to the constitution. We are preparing a bill to plead to a lesser offense and end the case. Judges cannot make laws. The people have empowered this Parliament to make laws. If the people’s representatives do not make the laws, the judges have to act according to the existing laws willingly or unwillingly .Let’s have a parliamentary select committee and discuss in this regard.
A special land settlement was introduced to those affected by the war in the Northern and Eastern provinces. 70 percent of those disputes were resolved. So far, it is being carried out in six districts. As of 2015, the Attorney General’s Department had completed 65 case files in that year out of the number of incoming case files. There was a percentage of 65 percent. By restructuring the Attorney General’s Department and speeding up its work, priority was given to files related to children’s and women’s cases,, the efficiency of the Attorney General’s Department has increased from 65 percent to 105 percent at the end of 2017. If we can work with this efficiency, the Attorney General’s Department would not have accumulated so many case files. A senior government lawyer has to prepare for about 40 cases in the High Courts in one day. In 2015, 68 percent of the reports requested by the Government’s Analyst’s Department were provided. Eight laboratories were upgraded to a higher level and a DNA laboratory and a digital forensic laboratory were upgraded and the efficiency of providing reports was increased to 100 percent by the end of 2017. Notary Ordinance Act, Document Registration Act, Last Will Act, Power of Attorney Act were misused mostly. Lawyers and notaries who wrote deeds were abused. There are about 50,000 forged deeds. From now on, they will not be able to write fake deeds.
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