Replies to questions raised by Finance Committee Members in examining the

Draft Estimates of Expenditure 2001-02

 

[Bureau Secretary/Controlling Officer : Judiciary Administrator]

[Session No. : 10]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bureau Serial No.

JA001

Question Serial No.

0582

 

Examination of draft Estimates of Expenditure 2001-02

CONTROLLING OFFICER'S REPLY TO

WRITTEN/SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION

 

Head : 80 Judiciary                                Subhead (No. & title) :

 

Programme : (1) Courts and Tribunals

 

Controlling Officer : Judiciary Administrator

 

Bureau Secretary : Judiciary Administrator

 

Question :

In respect of the need for an increase in provision as required by the Judiciary due to the increase in the number of cases and hence in manpower, please elaborate on each of the following two aspects:

 

(a)    In 01-02, it is expected that following the increase in the civil jurisdictional limit of the District Court, there will be a close-to-60% increase in the number of civil cases, i.e. the number of those cases will go up to 51,000.  How much will be earmarked by the Judiciary and what will be the increase in size of manpower or the extent of staff redeployment in order to deal with the expected increase in the number of cases and workload?

 

(b)   Comparing the figures in 99-00 and 00-01, the number of cases handled by the Small Claims Tribunal indicates an increase of more than 12% and it is expected that there will be a further increase of close to 9% in 01-02.  How much will be earmarked by the Judiciary and what will be the increase in size of manpower or the extent of staff redeployment in order to deal with the expected increase in the number of cases and workload?

 

Asked by : Hon Albert HO Chun-yan

 

Reply :

 

(a)     With the increase in the civil jurisdictional limit of the District Court in September 2000, one post of Registrar, District Court and two posts of Deputy Registrars, District Court were created at a notional annual mid-point salary of $3.76 million.  Eight supporting staff posts were created for the District Court at a notional annual mid-point salary of $1.60 million in addition to 20 supporting staff redeployed thereto.

 

 

 

(b)    One Adjudicator and one Tribunal Officer were added to the Small Claims Tribunal when its jurisdiction was increased to $50,000 in October 1999.  To cope with the continued increase in caseload in the Small Claims Tribunal, one additional court, presided by an Adjudicator and supported by a Tribunal Officer, was set up in January 2001.  This measure was implemented through re-deployment of existing resources.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signature
Name in block letters	Wilfred Tsui
Post Title	Judiciary Administrator
Date	19 March 2001

 

 

 

 

Bureau Serial No.

JA002

Question Serial No.

0583

 

Examination of draft Estimates of Expenditure 2001-02

CONTROLLING OFFICER'S REPLY TO

WRITTEN/SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION

 

Head : 80 Judiciary                                Subhead (No. & title) :

 

Programme : (2) Support Services for Courts’ Operation

 

Controlling Officer : Judiciary Administrator

 

Bureau Secretary : Judiciary Administrator

 

Question :

In 2001-02, what kinds of court services will be accessible to the public through the network after the Judiciary Information Systems Strategy Phase III projects are completed?

 

Asked by : Hon Albert HO Chun-yan

 

Reply :

Members of the public can make their payments of certain penalties and fines, such as fixed penalties for traffic contraventions and fines imposed by the court after they have pleaded guilty by letter, through the internet and Automatic Teller Machines of the bank’s network.  Through the Judiciary homepage, members of the public can download court forms, obtain daily cause lists, judgments, practice directions, guides to court services, and interest rate on judgment debts, besides access to other court information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signature
Name in block letters	Wilfred Tsui
Post Title	Judiciary Administrator
Date	19 March 2001

 

 

 

Bureau Serial No.

JA003

Question Serial No.

0584

 

Examination of draft Estimates of Expenditure 2001-02

CONTROLLING OFFICER'S REPLY TO

WRITTEN/SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION

 

Head : 80 Judiciary                                Subhead (No. & title) :

 

Programme : (2) Support Services for Courts’ Operation

 

Controlling Officer : Judiciary Administrator

 

Bureau Secretary : Judiciary Administrator

 

Question :

In 2001-02, how much will the Judiciary allocate to provide necessary support services for conducting trials in Chinese at various levels of courts and how will the provisions be used specifically?

 

Asked by : Hon Albert HO Chun-yan

 

Reply :

The Judiciary set up a Judgment Translation Unit in the Court Interpreters Office in September 1999.  It is staffed by six additional Senior Court Interpreters at a notional annual mid-point salary of $4.33 million.  The Unit translates all judgments of the Court of Final Appeal from English into Chinese, as well as selected judgments delivered by the Court of Appeal and the Court of First Instance.  The same level of staffing will be maintained for this Unit in 2001–02.

 

The Judiciary is also developing an electronic bi-lingual legal corpus system with the assistance of the City University of Hong Kong.  The system will provide search functions to facilitate the writing of judgments in Chinese.  The project, expected to be completed in July this year, will cost $2.1 million over two financial years.  The remaining portion to be paid out in 2001–02 will be about $700,000.

 

 

 

Signature
Name in block letters	Wilfred Tsui
Post Title	Judiciary Administrator
Date	19 March 2001

 

 

 

 

Bureau Serial No.

JA004

Question Serial No.

0651

 

Examination of draft Estimates of Expenditure 2001-02

CONTROLLING OFFICER'S REPLY TO

WRITTEN/SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION

 

Head : 80 Judiciary                                Subhead (No. & title) :

 

Programme : (2) Support Services for Courts’ Operation

 

Controlling Officer : Judiciary Administrator

 

Bureau Secretary : Judiciary Administrator

 

Question :  

Regarding the subject of ensuring that both English and Chinese can be used in the courts of various levels, please supply the figures on the ratio of hearings in English to hearings in Chinese at the following levels of courts respectively?

(1)     Court of Final Appeal;

(2)     Court of Appeal;

(3)     Court of First Instance;

(4)     District Court; and

(5)     Magistracy.

 

Asked by : Hon Cyd HO Sau-lan

 

Reply :

The ratios between English and Chinese hearings at the different levels of courts in 2000 were:

 

	Trials in English	Trials in Chinese
Court of Final Appeal	100%	0%
Court of Appeal          Criminal cases          Civil cases	79.1% 78.0%	20.9% 22.0%
Court of First Instance           Criminal cases           Civil cases           Appeals from lower courts	85.3% 90.6% 59.5%	14.7% 9.4% 40.5%

 

 

 

 

District Court           Criminal cases           Civil cases

87.5% 91.1%