By Kevin Kam Soo Aun
A KEY performance indicator (KPI), as its name suggests, is a measure of performance.
Such measures are commonly used to help an organisation define and evaluate how successful it is, typically in terms of making progress towards its long-term organisational goals. Basically, one is given numbers to achieve.
Recently, Chief Justice Tun Zaki Azmi assigned Key Performance Index (KPI) to the judiciary to boost efficiency and build public confidence – judges were given a target to dispose of a certain number of cases annually so as to speed up hearing of cases.
Whilst this move to expedite the hearing of cases should be lauded, will a KPI achieve the objective of striking a balance between the role of the judiciary which is to dispense justice and, at the same time, reducing delay in doing so?
Zaki recently acknowledged in an interview conducted by a past president of the Malaysian Bar that the KPI is meant to merely set a target for the judges and is not meant to be the determining factor in the assessment of whether a judge is efficient and good.
Notwithstanding this, this author wishes to discuss the general perceptions of this KPI, and in this respect, hopes that the judiciary would clear this perception.
KPI robs away the safeguards
There have always been allegations that some judges have forced litigants to settle cases. The thin line between “assisting” and “compelling” to settle becomes blurred.
Judges may conduct trials speedily, such as proceeding with trials even when informed that key witnesses are not ready, thus ignoring procedural safeguards under the court rules.