For guaranteeing the witnesses' presence and reducing the postponement of backlogged law cases

The HJC approves upon new instructions for accelerating the trial process of cases and limiting the judicial backlog state

The Honorable Issa Abu Sharar , head of the High Court/ the Chief Justice , issued, within the law framework, new instructions ,directed to the Courts Heads and judges , concern with the matter of following the civil principles , evidences and penal procedures . Such instructions aim at accelerating the trial process in the waiting case at the courts and decreasing the judicial backlog.

In this context, the Chief Justice said, "such instructions are in line with the law and they came in the light of the Judicial Inspection Department's reports that aims at  guaranteeing the work course in the courts. They came in the form of recommendations given in a number of workshops, which were organized by the HJC and the civil society institutions, for discussing the question of judicial backlog in the courts and the state of the waiting accumulated lawsuits in the courts.

The Chief Justice requires the courts heads and the judges to abide completely by such instructions . Hence, he asks the relevant parties, including the lawyers, that they should support these steps and follow it. Such binding will have a positive effect upon accelerating the  process in the waiting cases' trial and solving the backlog problem.

The HJC 's circular , which coincides with new judicial year onset , includes 29 articles that contains items such as articles which bind the prosecutor to attach the indictment presented to the chief court bureau with a documents' file keeper that supports the lawsuit , a list of written evidences available with other persons, a list of witnesses' names and complete addresses, the situations which he wants to prove by the personal testimony for each witness separately and to sign upon each available paper within the document file.

The mentioned instructions stress on the issue that the names of the plaintiff, defendant and the witness should be composed of four parts, and the witness's address must be defined explicitly so that s/he can be easily notified. If the defendant was outside the country, the latest address for him had to be assigned in the document. The instructions also require the urgent matters judge to abide by what's stipulated by the principles law of civil and penal trials in assigning a session during a period that would not surpasses seven days  for studying the file and notifying the defendant for attendant and if it was not possible to notify him/her, the judge must continue in requesting  the attendance of one party ,and the postponement between a session and another must be within a reasonable period, and to issue the decision of the request urgently. 

To activate the witnesses attendance in the courts , the chief justice instructions require to issue a verdict upon the notified witness who doesn’t attend the court by paying the fine provided in the law. If the witness fails to attend again , the court is entitled to issue subpoena for him/her. The circular requires the court to make the litigants, who want to use witnesses through the courts, deposit a sum of money in the court which adequately covers the witnesses' expenses according to the evidences law.

Another procedure that aims at accelerating the trial in the backlogged cases is that the chief justice forbids , except in cases which must be proved in the court minute, the postponement the case for a period that surpasses 30 days in each time or for more one time for the same reason that refers only to one of the litigants. But in the summary cases procedures, the court holds a session to hear the case through 15 days from the date of being filed at the court.

The chief justice asks the judges to jot down the national and official vacations in their book agenda from the onset of the new judicial year so that they can avoid assigning the sessions in those days. Moreover, the first day of each month must be assigned for making inventory list of cases and making the necessary comparison with the records; the same is applied to the execution departments.

In a continuous context, the chief justice requires  the courts heads of appeal and first instance to survey the rehabilitation and correction centers and detention centers in their districts , and they should practice their censorship authorities which are provide in the law.