THE FOUR JUSTICE MODELS: ORGANISED CREATIVITY IN JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION
| Citation | (1999) 11 SAcLJ 377 |
| Published date | 01 December 1999 |
| Date | 01 December 1999 |
| Author | Abraham Maslow Eric Tin Keng Seng |
“The key question isn’t ‘what fosters creativity?’ But it is why in God’s name isn’t everyone creative? Where was the human potential lost? How was it crippled? I think therefore a good question might be not why do people create? But why do people not create or innovate? We have got to abandon that sense of amazement in the face of creativity, as if it were a miracle if anybody created anything.”
1. The Singapore Judiciary comprises the Supreme Court and the Subordinate Courts. The Subordinate Courts as constituted by statute consist of District Courts, Magistrates’ Courts, the Coroner’s Court, the Juvenile Court and the Small Claims Tribunals. 95 %1 of all cases in Singapore are dealt with in these courts. The Subordinate Courts also handle a case profile much wider in range and scope than the Supreme Court. It is in these courts that the Rule of Law has practical meaning for most people. The high caseload and variety of case types therefore necessitate these courts to be managed as well as, if not better than, a large multi-national corporation in terms of efficiency, productivity and quality of the justice deliverables. The critical difference, however, is that the courts, as an Organ of State, has a Constitutional function to discharge and is vested with properly defined statutory jurisdictions, duties and roles. The courts are a public institution and the repository of public trust and confidence. The administration of justice, which is the courts’ core business, is non-delegable, non-negotiable and immutable.
2. Since 1992, significant developments have taken place in these courts, due largely to the visionary and dynamic leadership of The Honourable the Chief Justice Yong Pung How, and the innovative and able management of the Senior District Judge Richard Magnus. The initiation of annual operational workplans was a key element in the reorganisation of the Subordinate Courts. The inaugural workplan in 1992 successfully eradicated backlogs and delays that plagued the courts for decades. The next two workplans in 1993 and 1994 established case management and performance measurement. The 1995 workplan institutionalised a set of timeless core justice values to guide the courts in the administration of
justice, while the 1996 workplan stressed on expedition and timeliness in justice delivery.
3. The 1997 workplan took on a strategic dimension: the envisioning of a world class judiciary. A Justice Statement, which encapsulates the mission statement, objectives and goals, timeless justice values and essential judicial principles of the Subordinate Courts, was endorsed and launched by judges of the Subordinate Courts as a framework of ideals for the realisation of the vision. The Justice Statement also broadly classifies the range and scope of work in these Courts into Four Justice Models: the Civil Justice model, Criminal Justice model, Juvenile Justice model, and Family Justice model. Within each of these justice models, various reform initiatives have been undertaken to fulfill the stated objectives and goals.
4. At the Opening of the Legal Year in January 1999, Chief Justice Yong concluded that the Subordinate Courts have realised their vision of becoming world class. In April 1999, the technical advisors of the Latin America and Carribean Region of the World Bank recommended the Subordinate Courts as “a useful modernisation experience for developing and developed countries pursuing judicial improvement programmes”2. As this submission will show later, public trust and confidence in the Subordinate Courts’ administration of justice, both locally and internationally, is very high. This submission will examine how the definition of Four Justice Models has helped to creatively organised the Subordinate Courts’ justice initiatives effectively, thereby enhanced public access to justice and modernised the administration of justice in Singapore.
5. Before 1992, the Subordinate Courts moved at a relatively slow pace, where long waiting periods and delays were the norm. This was due largely to the accumulation of a huge backlog of cases over a few decades prior to Singapore’s independence in 1965. The inefficiencies in the justice system burdened the economic competitiveness of the nation, as swift and certain legal protection is a condition precedent to investor confidence in the nation. As Singapore rapidly developed into a regional and international commercial hub, the justice system had to keep pace with the swift transactional developments. At the same time, it was necessary to ensure that the local community maintains high levels of public trust and confidence in the justice system, which is integral to securing the observance of the rule of law, necessary for a democratic society.
6. Singapore has the common law judicial system. In main due to the legal tradition of an adversarial system of justice, the pace of legal proceedings was then dictated largely by counsel and litigants, and not by the courts. It was normal in the late 1980s, for trial dates to be given about one to two years in advance, as court calendars were loosely managed. In the Subordinate Courts, the waiting period for both criminal and civil cases was about two years in 1991. Accused persons can thus remain in remand for a not insignificant period of time. Those serving the Subordinate Courts were contented with minimal changes to the justice system and processes, and were in fact generally resistant to change. There was also lack of planning in the administration of the courts as well as in human and other material resource allocation. Very few justice initiatives were pioneered by the courts. Nor was there co-ordination in justice-related programmes. To put simply, developments in the Subordinate Courts occurred in a haphazard manner with an uncoordinated pace until 1992.
7. Between 1992 to 1997, before the Four Justice Models were introduced along with the Justice Statement, although there were many justice initiatives under various workplans, they did not fit into any paradigm for better management and supervision. The Four Justice Models, each with different aims, are devised because experience has taught us that the adversarial system of adjudication is not necessarily suited to all circumstances. Different cases require different approaches. The initiation of annual workplans had also introduced modern concepts of management into the realm of judicial administration. The concept of the Four Justice Models, for instance, was consistent with the contemporary management philosophy of protecting stakeholders’ or constituents’ interests. Who are the courts’ stakeholders and constituents? This brings us to the question of target group.
8. The target group of a justice system must be the court users. This can be defined as those who come before the courts to seek protection, redress and remedies, as well as those who do not have a direct interest in the outcome of the case but whose participation in the administration of justice is relevant and necessary. Within the broad rubric of the Four Justice Models, having regard to the types of cases that enter the justice system, the courts deal with civil cases up to a certain monetary limit, most criminal cases save those prescribed by the law to be tried in the Supreme Court, all family-related cases and disputes, and all juvenile matters.
9. Under the Civil Justice model, the key court users are the counsel for the litigating parties, the litigants themselves, the witnesses, and members of the public. Under the Criminal Justice model, there is the accused person or offender, the defence counsel, the prosecuting and law
enforcement agencies, the witnesses, and the victim of crime. For the Family Justice model, the principal users include estranged or divorcing couples, their children, their relatives and family support network, as well as representatives from welfare and voluntary agencies. Users in the Juvenile Justice model includes the delinquent juvenile, the parents and guardians of the juvenile, and the network of friends and support of the juvenile, the prosecuting and law enforcement agencies, as well as voluntary and welfare bodies.
10. Having classified the target group, the initiatives under each justice model can then take into account the needs and expectations of each of these categories of court users. As the courts are also a public service provider, the court users are the courts’“clients”, and their “customer satisfaction” in terms of the quality of justice dispensed and the level of court services provided, can be a litmus of the success of the justice system. But who within the judiciary should determine what are the justice initiatives that can best serve the court users? The answer lies in having an effective core work team.
11. The senior management of the Subordinate Courts, which includes the Senior District Judge, the senior judges, the Registrar...
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