End of KPI?

Dear lawyers,

Since the new Bar Council took office in the middle of March 2011, the principle focus has been to sort out the KPI Resolution at the AGM. Re-cap : at the last Bar AGM, the members almost unanimously put a vote of no-confidence against the KPI system imposed in Court, as it has curtailed Justice at the expense of statistics. 

Since then, the Office Bearers have met the CJ & gang, many times and to summarise, (as at 4th April 2011); this is more or less what has happened:-

1. OB met CJ about 2 weeks ago.

2. OB re-visited the results of a Joint meeting between Judiciary & BC in JAnuary 2011. At that meeting, a few points were agreed (adjournment issue/witness issue/force-to-close case early issue etc etc).

3. CJ inform President, no more KPI

4. OB met BC a few days after that meeting

5. BC gave mandate to OB to push thru a new Practise Direction (PD), to legislate better management of cases (adjournment/witnesses/written submission etc etc)

6. A PD was drafted and presented to CJ & gang about 10 days ago.

7. The same draft PD was discussed at the Session Court Judges/Magistrate Conference at Melaka last weekend. 

8. Many phone calls exchanged between OB & CJ/CJM etc

9. Draft PD more or less agreed. 

10. Meeting between OB & CJ plus gang on 4/4/2011 to iron out the draft PD

11. Now waiting for CJM (who was ill and absent at the said meeting) to revert and confirm

12. If all goes well, maybe (just maybe) a Joint Press Conference will be held between CJ & OB of BC to sort this out. 

* on many occasions, Brendan Siva (Court Liaison Chair) & Rajpal Singh (Criminal Practice Comm Chair) followed OB to meet CJ & gang. 

So, maybe; if all goes well, OB can make a joint announcement on this issue this week.. Keeping fingers cross, and working hard on this issue.

Thanks

rw