ODPP's conviction rate jumps to 63% in first half of 2020 - report

 

Two hundred and twenty corruption cases were registered in court between January 2018 and June 2020, DPP Noordin Haji has confirmed.

According to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, Annual Report released on Monday, the conviction rate increased significantly between 2017-2020.

The fight against corruption continued to be a key focus area from January 2018 to June 2020.

The DPP pointed out that the conviction rate is one of the parameters used to measure performance in the fight against corruption.

"The Office saw a progressive increase in the conviction rate obtained during the above mentioned years to a remarkable rate of 63.16% in the first half of 2020.

The number of cases with convictions was 7, 27, 35, 43 and 45 in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively.

The conviction rates were 30.4%, 46.55%, 37.63%,47.25% and 47.27% in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively," Haji said.

A total of 26 cases were registered as at June 20, 2020, as 78 cases were reported in 2019 and 116 cases in 2018.

A total of 238 cases were concluded, with 20 as at June 30, 2020, 103 in 2019, and 115 in 2018.

The record of the conclusion of corruption cases is attributed to the strategies employed by ODPP in the fight against corruption.

The bar graph illustrates the number of cases finalised with conviction during the respective years whereas the line graph represents conviction rate for corruption cases.

The DPP's office has organized its prosecutorial functions into five broad thematic areas: criminal litigation, appeals and applications proceedings, extraditions and MLA processing, advice files briefing, and complaints processing.

Interagency co-operation, collaboration and coordination are key considerations while undertaking the above roles.

Performance outlook during the reporting period

The performance of the Office is assessed on six major parameters: caseload 1, conviction rate 2, success rate 3, conclusion rate 4, jurisprudential development and prosecution of high impact cases.

In the reporting period 2019/2020, 2018/2019 and 2017/2018, the total numbers of matters handled (caseload) were 329,485; 313,155; and 337,242 respectively.

The conviction rates for the reporting period was 92.58%, 91.03% and 90.2% respectively.