Judiciary: Late judgments still slowing delivery of justice

Some 236 judgments have been outstanding for at least six months in courts across the country. A GroundUp report says this is according to the latest Reserved Judgment Report for the Chief Justice as of the beginning of the fourth term of 2023 (2 October or 1 November, depending on the court). In total 1 366 judgments were reserved as of these dates. The Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) last released the list of reserved judgments in November 2023. But this only went up to term two of 2023. The lists up to the start of term three and term four were released only this month. This means there is still no public record of the judgments reserved since six months ago. The number of late judgments dropped from 264 in term two to 213 in term three, but then increased to 236 in term four.

Of the 236 late judgments, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) had the most (42). This was followed by the KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) with 32 late judgments and the Johannesburg Labour Court with 24. Both the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) and Labour Court had 20 late judgments, notes the GroundUp report.