Question NW248 to the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services

Reply:

On 24 November 2024, the Master of the High Court committed to implementing immediate/short-term interventions as part of the Master’s turn-around strategy. The progress and the implementation thereof is reported as follows:

a) Intervention 1: The roll-out of the Deceased Estates Online system nationally by January 2024.

This intervention is assisting the Masters in addressing challenges of long queues, long turn-around times in issuing appointment letters and it enables practitioners as well as members of the public to lodge deceased estates online and to book appointments online to visit the Masters’ offices at a date and time of their choosing. Masters and ICT have successfully completed the roll-out of the system on 14 December 2023 in all Masters’ offices as well as service points. As at 21 February 2024, 2926 applications were lodged on the online system. The 2926 applications are explained in detail as follows:

CASE STATUS	NUMBER OF CASES
Total number of Applications	2926
Incomplete (awaiting client/attorney finalisation and submission)	217
Awaiting DHA validations (failed DHA validations)	1
Rework Requested (awaiting client/attorney corrections)	429
Screen Application and awaiting Masters’ approval	408
Will lodgement (awaiting original will lodgement at Masters)	39
Cases Registered (completed and letters issued)	1832

b) Intervention 2: Increased visibility and education on the Deceased Estates online functionalities and other Masters’ services – The Department has developed and published training videos on the Masters’ portal, YouTube and on the DOJ & CD Facebook platform on 29 January 2024. The videos can be accessed by practitioners and members of the public to assist them in lodging deceased estates applications, booking appointments online and tracking the status of their applications.

c) Intervention 3: Increased engagements with the legal fraternity and provision of training of online platforms as requested by the Law Society of South Africa - On 23 January 2024, a training webinar was hosted by Office of the Chief Master to train stakeholders practising in deceased estates on the use of the new online system, provide them with further updates on future developments and to give them a platform to raise any issues they may have with the Masters’ services. The initial intention was to engage only legal practitioners however, members of FISA, BASA, CIBA and SAICA participated in the webinar. 2308 legal practitioners, fiduciary professionals and accountants were trained in the webinar.

a) What are the relevant details of the backlog faced by the Master’s Offices as at 31 December 2023?

The backlog in the Masters office consists of backlog in Guardian’s funds applications, Trust matters and the issuing of appointments in deceased estate matters. As at 31 December 2023, the backlog was 13851 matters; 935 (6.75%) of backlog matters have been cleared and offices are working on clearing the rest of the backlog. The Masters are still plagued by several challenges including but not limited to, systems downtime, load shedding and a high vacancy rate in the midst of costs containment measures, thus finding themselves juggling between reaching increased APP targets, assisting clients as well as dealing with the omnipresent and inevitable increasing backlog.