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The following is issued on behalf of the Judiciary :

In response to press enquiries on a report that judges only sit in court for two hours daily on average, a spokesman of the Judiciary clarifies today (March 18) that court sitting time is not equivalent to judicial time.

The spokesman noted that judges and judicial officers worked seven to eight hours daily on average according to a survey by the Judiciary and a substantial proportion of the judges' time was spent on out-of-court work (the result was set out in the attached table).

The spokesman stressed that the efficiency of the court was not, and should not be, determined by the length of time a judge spent in the court room.

"To prepare for trials, judges need to read documents related to the case submitted by parties or their legal representatives. For complex cases, they can be in terms of thousands of pages.

"After hearing, judges need time to put in writing their judgments," the spokesman explained.

The spokesman also noted that in addition, judges had to constantly keep abreast with the law in reading legal reference and in attending seminars and conferences.

Judges were also frequently involved with law reform, legislative proposals and other areas of public importance where the particular qualities of a judge were needed, e.g. legal education and professional training of lawyers, the spokesman said.

"All these contributions are not reflected in court sitting time, which, as the Chief Justice pointed out recently in the Opening of the Legal Year 2000, is only a fraction of a judge's working time," he said.

The spokesman also pointed out the thought that the longer a judge sat in court, the higher was the productivity of the judge was a misconception.

"On contrary, the effective use of court time will result in shorter hearings and saving of costs for the parties, which is in the public interest and this is what the Judiciary has been striving to achieve.

"For example, the implementation of the digital and audio recording and transcription system in court since 1996 helped to reduce court sitting hours by 20-30% as judges no longer need to take notes of proceedings manually," the spokesman noted.

The Judiciary had also adapted the court proceedings such as requiring written submission of arguments prior to the hearing and the practice of handing down as opposed to the delivery of judgments to ensure court time was well used, the spokesman said.

Regarding the utilisation of court rooms, the spokesman noted that under current listing policy, it was expected that judges would use the court rooms allocated to them for a full day every day.

"The 'low' utilisation of court room observed is more apparent than real.

"It is caused by the unpredictable development of cases, e.g. under-run and over-run, as well as adjournment requested by parties," the spokesman said.

He said with a view to maximising the utilisation of judges' available time and court room facilities, the Judiciary had been taking the following measures :

(a) listing urgent and short cases to fill time slots

vacated at short notice; and

(b) overbooking judges' diaries so that more cases are

packed within the available time.

"While these measures have brought improvement, it is simply not possible to fill all unexpected vacant time slots as sufficient time (at least 24 hours) has to be allowed for parties or witnesses to prepare themselves. Moreover, to ask parties, counsel and witnesses to get ready, come to court and stand by but ending in their cases not being heard could waste their time and money," the spokesman said.

The spokesman noted that it had been suggested that court rooms could perhaps be shared or cases could be listed in terms of morning and afternoon sessions in order to reduce the unoccupied time.

"The first option would result in long queues and waiting time.

"The second option is not acceptable professionally as it would involve a judge and counsel in dealing with more than one case at the same time. The required concentration and continuity of thoughts in the trial throughout its duration would be seriously affected," the spokesman said.

                 Utilisation of Judicial Time

                           Summary





Courts/Tribunals    Hearing     Case      Others    Total

                    (hrs.)      related   (hrs.)    (hrs.)

                                work

                                (hrs.)



High Court



  Court of Appeal     2.13      4.87       1.93      8.93



  Court of First      2.64      3.83       0.83      7.30

   Instance



  Masters Court       3.65      2.10       1.67      7.42



  District Court      2.70      2.95       1.84      7.49



Other Courts and      3.65      3.36       0.68      7.69

 Tribunals



Magistracies          4.16      2.20       0.81      7.17





  Overall Average     3.42      2.98       1.06      7.46

End/Saturday, March 18, 2000

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