Chief Justice Chan Reech Madut has revealed his intention to establish more specialized courts.
Madut expressed the sentiments during his address at the beginning of the Judicial Reforms Committee (JRC) report and recommendations validation in Juba on Wednesday.
He said the current courts in Juba were functioning well and that efforts were underway to extend their services to the states.
Madut also disclosed plans to set up special courts to address the refugee issues and matters of the displaced people, animal protection and the environment.
“It is in our mind to go beyond cities like Juba with these special and mobile courts. I am thinking about specialized courts for refugees and the displaced people,” he said.
He also said plans were underway to appoint more assistant judges to address the case backlog.
Madut disclosed that there were currently less than 200 assistant judges, slowing down the justice process.
He revealed plans to promote some judges and increase appointments of the assistants by 100.
The Chief Justice disclosed that there have been no promotions due to the economic hardship.
“In order to improve the work of the judiciary, we need to do some promotions. Because psychologically, if someone is promoted, they do well,” he said, noting that his administration could not do the promotions because of the economic hardship.
“We also plan to make more appointments because we now have less than 200. We plan to appoint not less than 100 judiciary assistants,” he said.
Further, he revealed, more than 500 South Sudanese lawyers had applied for appointments.
Majority of states were lacking judges and most cases remained pending.
The Chief Justice also said that the judiciary planned to set up a suggestion box within court premises for the public to present their ideas on the reforms.
In addition, the he suggested that a meeting chamber for judges should be set aside to promote ideas on judicial transformation.