The Moseneke Commission's recommendations to increase the salaries of magistrates and other public office bearers will result in the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) losing more prosecutors, MPs heard this week.
NPA boss Vusi Pikoli told the National Assembly's justice committee that they were facing a "crisis" of senior prosecutors resigning to become magistrates because of the attractive pay packages.
Pikoli said that attempts to have the matter resolved had not borne any fruit. In fact, the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) recently told them to put the NPA's requests for more pay on hold.
The NPA is faced with a crippling situation of serious shortage of prosecutors and has a vacancy rate of 24 percent.
This results in a situation where the courts do not function properly and contributes to increasing number of backlog of cases waiting to be finalised.
So severe is the situation that recently the director of public prosecutions in the Northern Cape, Ivy Tenga, was summoned before a court to explain why there were no prosecutors, said Pikoli.
Pikoli warned that if some parity was not achieved in the salaries of prosecutors and magistrates, the NPA would be faced with a crisis which could disrupt the administration of justice.
Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke - who chaired the independent remuneration commission which was tasked with determining and reviewing the salaries of public servants including President Thabo Mbeki, cabinet ministers and senior judges - recommended an increase for magistrates.
"In the current year given the proposals of the Moseneke Commission a senior magistrate will earn R563 800 and if there's no change in the salary of a senior prosecutor the difference will be R155 677. Without doubt this is going to cause very serious problems for the NPA which will definitely lead to a crisis if this is not appropriately addressed to at least achieve some parity in terms of the salaries," said Pikoli.
With the qualifications for prosecutors and magistrates almost the same more senior prosecutors were moving to the greener pastures on the bench.
Pikoli said that they had engaged the department of treasury, the DPSA and the department of justice on the issue and had been told to "wait for the rest of other legal professionals so that their salaries are also improved".
Waiting, said Pikoli, was a luxury they could "ill-afford" as more prosecutors were leaving the NPA and this was impacting on the administration of justice.
In 2002 senior prosecutors and magistrates earned almost equal salaries of around R244 000 per annum.
But things changed in 2005 when magistrates' salaries received a boost to R375 000 as opposed to the R295 000 salary received by prosecutors - creating a gap of R80 000.
Currently, magistrates earn R489 000 (including car allowance) while senior prosecutors receive R408 000.
Pikoli painted a picture of a crumbling public prosecution system where 109 prosecutors have left the NPA to take up magistracy in the last three years.
This number is excluding those prosecutors who left to join the private sector or to pursue other interests.
He also told the committee that they had recently embarked on a major recruitment drive where they visited universities to attract law graduates to the NPA.
Committee chairperson Fatima Chohan advised the NPA to also consider recruiting criminal lawyers.