Pretoria - The most senior members at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) are fed up with not getting anywhere for more than a decade in their fight for salary increases.
They have now approached the Constitutional Court in a final bid to receive what they say is very long overdue.
The group of demoralised deputy directors of public prosecution and chief prosecutors – who have to oversee the most important cases in the country – launched legal papers to the apex court in which they are asking this court for direct access to decide over the fact that they are simply being overlooked for salary increases and benefits.
As things now stand, the most senior legal minds within the National Prosecuting Authority are earning far less than their juniors.
It is stated in court papers issued by the Public Servants Association (PSA), the union which has launched this latest bid on behalf of its members, that the NPA is losing experienced legal minds as they are so demoralised.
The NPA has 101 deputy directors and 32 chief prosecutors in its service, with 66 vacant posts at those levels.
The union said in its papers that the country could not afford to lose these experienced prosecutors at this stage, where the prosecuting authority is tasked with investigating the findings of the Zondo Commission report and institute appropriate prosecutions.
In terms of the current structure, deputy directors and chief prosecutors are being restricted in their career path and unable to apply for higher vacant posts. The result, the union said, was a brain drain.
Their joy was short-lived in 2019 when the high court in Pretoria ruled that government had to give them the salary raises and post structures promised to them in 2010. It was even ruled that they had to receive pay backdated to 2007.
The high court found that all deputy directors were, in fact, “prosecutors who would have been appointed as such in terms of the provisions of Section 16 of the Act (National Prosecuting Authority Act)”.
It meant that all deputy directors and chief prosecutors would fall under a new salary model, occupation specific dispensation on level LP10, which meant more money, and benefits.
But this order was overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which found that the high court did not have the jurisdiction to rule in the matter.
The prosecutors, through the union, have argued all along that government agreed in 2007 that they would be entitled to the benefits of an improved salary dispensation, which was gazetted in 2010, for legal professionals working in the justice sector.
However, deputy directors and chief prosecutors were left out in the cold because they were seen as part of senior management – a situation which has left many of these legal minds bitter.
Mxolisi Nxasana undertook in 2015 to improve salaries. However, this decision was reversed by his successor, Shaun Abrahams.
“The NPA is out of sync, and created disparity within the Department of Justice and Legal Aid SA regarding the implementation of LP10. Both the department and Legal Aid SA have already implemented the translation of theory employers to LP10, despite being part of the same budget, the same minister and all being legal professionals within the justice cluster,” the union said.
In its papers to the Concourt, the union said given the Zondo report, it was evident that South Africa had never been in more dire need of competent, experienced prosecutors. Yet the NPA still refuses to implement the salary increases as promised more than 10 years ago and thus risking these experienced legal minds to leave.
The union said one of these deputy directors, for example, who was appointed 16 years ago, was earning far less than the senior state advocates who had benefited from the earlier structural change.
The deputy director is the supervisor of any of these senior advocates.
Pretoria News