Mahwelereng Magistrate’s Court: domestic violence cases finalised in three months instead of five

More than 1,000 domestic violence matters sat in the pipeline at Mahwelereng, and a case took five months to finalise. Five months is a long time to hold your life still. It is also long enough for a survivor to lose the will to see the matter through, which is how cases quietly disappear without anyone recording a decision to abandon them.

The 100-Day goal

Cut the time to finalise a domestic violence matter, and lift the number of finalisations achieved each court day.

The results

Time to finalisation dropped from five months to three.

Daily finalisations doubled. The court had been closing around ten matters on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and five on Wednesdays and Fridays. Over the 100 days, those daily counts doubled across the week.

Postponement dates moved substantially. A matter postponed in July would previously have come back to court in January. It now returns in November.

Who did the work

The team pulled in everyone who touches a domestic violence file: court staff, law enforcement, legal professionals and social services, working to one clock rather than five separate ones.

How they did it

The team went after the postponement date first, because that is where the months hide. A postponement is issued in seconds and costs half a year. They asked what the next available date actually needed to be rather than what it had always been, and the answer turned out to be far sooner than the roll suggested.

They then worked backwards through each step of the process and asked what genuinely had to happen before a matter could be heard. Steps that existed out of habit came out. That is what made the higher daily volume possible without adding staff.

Underneath both, the relationships did the real work. When SAPS, prosecutors and social services all treat a delay as their problem, a file stops sitting on someone’s desk waiting for someone else.

What continues

The shortened postponement dates are now the court’s operating practice, not a sprint measure. So is the working relationship across the agencies, which was the hardest thing to build and is the thing that would take longest to rebuild if it lapsed.

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Thought starter reflection questions

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:
  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
  • How would you characterise the level of trust among participants in the meeting? To what extent did this shift as the meeting progressed? To what do you attribute this shift, if indeed it happened?

Thought starter...

Reflection Questions 

Jot down thoughts on these questions – to the extent they are relevant to your experience at the session:

  • When did the mood in the event shift from “why are we here?” to “this could be interesting – I am excited to be part of this.” What triggered this shift? 
  • When did you have to go “off script” on the agenda or to change the agenda? What triggered this? What did you adjust? How did it go?
  • What was most surprising to you at the event?
  • What new insights did you gain about the issue at hand, and about the way leaders in the system interacted with each other?
  • Where did the conversation get stuck? What got it unstuck?
These are 100-Day Challenge Mentors. 

They did some work before you received the Challenge Note. This included:

  • Writing the Challenge Note, and making sure that the leaders of all the organisations represented on the team are comfortable with it – and committed to supporting the work of the team
  • Helping the leaders of these organisation recruit you and your colleagues to the team
  • Gathering some baseline data and other information that will help you and your teammates set your 100-Day goal and develop your plan.
  • Making sure all the preparations are made for a successful Lift-Off workshop, when you and your teammates will meet and get your 100-Day Challenge started. This includes venue, facilitation support, food, swags, comms, travel arrangements and whatever else is needed.

 

Mentors will participate in all or part of the Lift-Off Workshop, mostly at the start to provide context and answer questions, and at the end to give you and your teammates feedback about the goal and plan you develop.

During the 100 days following the Lift-Off Workshop, here’s what the Mentors will do:  

  • They will check in every two weeks with the team leaders to see how the team is doing and what support they and the team need.
  • They will keep other organisational leaders informed and engaged during the 100 days, and pull them in to help as needed.
  • They will participate in the last part of the Refuelling Workshop, halfway through the 100 days, to see what additional support the team needs, and to begin to plan with the team for sustainability and scale-up.
  • They will work with the team at the Sustainability Workshop to finalise recommendations on sustaining the results and building on the work of the team.