South Africa's judiciary is again under the spotlight - this time for failing to deliver a long list of outstanding judgments, some of which have been pending for six or even 10 years.
This has prompted the General Council of the Bar of South Africa (GCB) to formally lodge a complaint with Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, requesting that the issue be addressed and that incompetent judges "should be persuaded to do the right thing before we have another public spectacle involving the judiciary".
"We should accept that our society no longer recognises the ivory tower where judges used to be," GCB chairman Patrick Mtshaulana SC said in a letter to the chief hustice. He asked that the matter receive urgent attention for the sake of the judiciary and the legal profession. "The judiciary is vulnerable and criticism of this nature may lower its image in the eyes of the public," he said.
Chief Justice Ngcobo responded that he was aware of cases where there were outstanding judgments and that these were reported to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). He asked the GCB to furnish him with details of all cases in which there were outstanding judgments and to include the names of the responsible judges as well, as whether the issue had been reported to the head of the court. The General Bar Council issued its members with a circular on January 25, asking for these details by Friday.
The Cape High Court's up-dated list of reserved judgments shows that 10 judgments have been outstanding since April 2008, an additional 29 since March 2009 and 16 since the beginning of this year. Acting judges were responsible for 19 of the 55 judgments. Two of the outstanding judgments were to have been delivered by Acting Judge Patrick Maqubela, who died before he could deliver them. Mtshaulana said Judge Maqubela's cases would have to be reheard before another judge.
Acting Cape Judge President Jeanette Traverso did not want to comment on the situation in the Cape, saying that it was already before the chief justice. Cape Bar Council chairperson Jeremy Muller SC said the Bar "periodically" received complaints about outstanding judgments. He said the situation in the Cape appeared to have improved since the court started distributing a list of reserved judgments to judges and advocate Mtshaulana said he could not give an idea of how widespread the problem was because he had been receiving the information in "dribs and drabs".
Mtshaulana said he had initially thought the complaints related to three or four cases, but added that "it's far bigger than I realised". However, he said that litigants in Johannesburg and Cape Town had been more vocal about the situation than in other areas. This did not mean that Johannesburg and Cape Town were the main culprits, he stressed. Mtshaulana said judges had to deliver judgments within a reasonable time, although this depended on the circumstances of each case. In addition, judges were also allocated new cases once a matter was finalised and often did not have time to prepare their judgments.
Some cases were also more complex than others and warranted more preparation. However, Mtshaulana said that if judges were simply lazy or incompetent, they should be dealt with.
"It's unacceptable that people have to wait so long for judgments...
"Justice delayed is justice denied," Mtshaulana said.ocates.
Muller said he had personally spoken to advocates at the Bar about any judgments they may have left outstanding after completing a stint on the Bench.
Source: IoL
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