The Ministry of Justice has launched a campaign to clear up the backlog of cases at each municipal and provincial court.

Four working groups were charged on May 18 with the implementation of the campaign to disseminate, plan and discuss the challenges.

Ministry spokesman Chin Malin is also the director of the fourth working group of the Campaign Implementation Committee.

He told The Post on Sunday that the implementation of the week-long campaign was to introduce alternative measures and show some necessary measures that the courts need to implement in the campaign.

“We have also discussed some of the challenges that the ministry can coordinate and provide support for, so the courts can successfully implement the campaign direction that we want to take,” he said.

Malin said the one-week mission also prepared a joint plan with the courts to implement the campaign. And the results for this one-week implementation have not yet been evaluated as they are still in the implementation phase.

“We will periodically evaluate the performance of this work, whether it is a month, a quarter or a semester.

“Therefore, the one-week visit to each court is to disseminate and introduce the measures that the court will undertake, as well as discuss the challenges faced by it, and set up mechanisms to address those challenges during the campaign implementation,” he said.

The committee informed the public on Friday about two contact numbers for the committee secretariat. This would allow the public to provide information and comments. The contact numbers are 017 609 960 and 078 567 810.

The ministry estimates that there are nearly 40,000 pending criminal cases, including 6,260 drug cases that need to be resolved. The ministry expects the campaign to reduce the backlog of cases by 50 to70 per cent in six months.

According to the ministry, the backlog of cases has become such a challenge that the ministry needs to assist the courts to consider this task an important part of its reform programme.