MANAMA: As part of reforms aimed at disposing of court cases in minimum time and efficiently have yielded positive results with the number of cases in awaiting dropping by 56 per cent, the Kingdom’s judicial indicators for the year 2019 show.
Abdullah bin Hassan Al-Buainain, President of the Court of Cassation, Vice-President of the Advisor to Supreme Judicial Council, on the sidelines of the Press conference held at the Council’s premises on Monday said that the year 2019 was started with over 26,000 cases pending before the courts dropped to just over 15,000 in the start of year 2020.
“This static speaks volume of achievements in terms of disposal of litigation quickly and in a record time,” Al-Buainain told The24X7News Bahrain (www.twentyfoursevennews.com) . “The automation of the system and restricting the maximum time to six months of cases have helped in achieving the targets by the Courts.
“The average age of cases has seen significant progress in courts of all levels, as statistics have shown that the average age of a case is less than 6 months in each level, of which 60% of cases are settled in less than three months,” he added. “Courts performance indicators for 2019 recorded a decrease in the rate of running cases by 56% in 2019 compared to the number of pending cases from previous year,” he said.
“The General Statistics for the Performance of Courts in 2019 revealed that civil, criminal, and Shari’a courts of all levels considered 101,167 cases, while the number of settled cases reached a total of 85,717 cases. The number of appealed judgments reached 14,655, which is 25% of the total judgments issued for the first degree.
“With regard to the performance indicators of the enforcement courts, the statistical data showed that the number of applications submitted in the year 2019 amounted to (496,160) applications, and the enforcement courts took 519 thousand decisions, which include the requests received for the year 2018. The statistical figures also showed that the current applications at the beginning of the current year amounts to 4,686 thousand applications, which marks a significant decrease in the number of applications in progress from the previous year by 80% and an increase in the completion rate in the enforcement courts.
“The Supreme Judicial Council will continue, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Endowments, to develop new initiatives aimed at ensuring the continued development of the court performance and the supporting entities through expansion of electronic services, and the use of the private sector,” he said.
“We are meeting with all stakeholders in the judicial process with the aim of developing new initiatives that continues to develop the judicial system in a way that is responsive to the needs of users and society, which includes lawyers, the business sector, real estate and bankers,” he said.
“The Judicial inspection, in coordination and cooperation with the Supervising Judges, work continuously to enhance the quality of judgments, through constant monitoring and inspection as well as ensuring the attendance of the judges to specialized training programmes,” Judge Abdul Rahman Al-Sayed Al-Mualla and Chief of Judicial Inspection told the Press conference.
“In the year 2019, the number of reports prepared by the Judicial Inspection Department reached 101 reports in various court departments. In 2019, Supervising Judges dealt with 537 complaints received by litigants and lawyers. Around 48 training programmes were implemented in the last year through the Institute of Judicial and Legal Studies, with a total of 3,600 training hours, in which various judges of all civil, criminal and Shari’a courts participated,” Al-Mualla, added.
“Continuing to develop the judicial system, many laws were passed, most notably the Alternative to imprisonment law which is aimed at promoting the application of alternative penalties to imprisonment within society aimed at rehabilitating the person who committed the crime and creating an effective member of society by assigning him to one of the community services instead of imprisoning him,” Judge Ali Ahmed Al-Kaabi, Secretary-General of the Supreme Judicial Council, revealed.
“There was also amendment to some provisions of the Civil and Commercial Procedures Code, which stipulated a fundamental and important change. The judgment in civil cases will be final if the value of the claim does not exceed BD1000. The issuance of the law of reorganization and bankruptcy that established a new system of reorganization and bankruptcy, which aims to reorganize debts and avoid liquidation of the assets of the debtor whenever possible, and allow the possibility of continuing to operate while adjusting certain practices and thus preserving the interests of all creditors,” he said.
“This included the issuance of a decree on mediation for settlement of disputes, which adopted the mediation system in civil, criminal, and Shari’a cases prior to and during court proceedings, thereby enhancing the application of alternative means of dispute resolution.”
“A decision was also issued to specify the types of small claims that are managed by electronic means, which includes all of the telecommunications companies ’claims, the Social Insurance Authority, the Electricity and Water Authority and the Labor Market Regulatory Authority, health care fees, credit cards, and bank loans,” he added.
