In 2020, candidate attorney Henri Strydom wrote: “Court orders handed down long after the conclusion of a hearing – up to two years’ later in some cases – or delivered without the judge providing reasons for the decision, are dissimilar to the rule of law, prolong uncertainty and delay the delivery of justice.”
The Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) has released its latest report on reserved judgments—more than a year after publishing its last report on 31 December 2021.
According to the latest Reserved Judgment Report for the Chief Justice, as of 31 December 2022 there were 184 judgments outstanding for at least six months in courts across the country. In total, 904 judgments were reserved. This is the highest it has been since GroundUp started reporting on late judgments in 2017.
The judicial norms and standards interpret that judgments in both civil and criminal matters should generally not be reserved without a fixed date for handing it down. However, instead of delivering judgment immediately or soon after a hearing or trial finishes, the court may choose to reserve judgment without a fixed date for handing it down. The judicial norms and standards further state that for “exceptional cases where it is not possible to execute so, every effort shall be made to hand down judgments no later than three months after the last hearing”.
GroundUp’s reporting used a more compassionate six-month benchmark to regard a reserved judgment as late. It appears the OCJ is also using the more compassionate six-month benchmark.
Previously, late judgment reports had been published three or four times a year, but the latest report for 31 December 2022, is the only one published by the judiciary for 2022. GroundUp tried to access this list for the past year, but our requests were stonewalled by the OCJ.
A previous report by the judiciary showed that at the conclude of December 2021, there were 156 judgments outstanding for more than six months. The number of late judgments increased by 28 by December 2022.
The latest report shows that at the time of publication, the Johannesburg Labour Court had the highest number of reserved judgments with a total of 116. Of these, 24 maintain been outstanding for more than six months.
The Kimberley High Court had the second-highest number of late judgments with 23 outstanding for more than six months. The Western Cape High Court and Cape Town Labour Court each had 19 late judgments.
The judgments which believe been outstanding the longest date back to 12 December 2012 and 4 June 2013, both by Judge Anton Van Zӱl. Despite not handing down judgment in these matters, Judge Van Zӱl retired in August 2021. He has eight outstanding late judgments.
Acting Judge Albert Eillert of the Kimberley High Court has ten late reserved judgments — this is the highest according to the list. Acting Judge Tessa Le Roux of the Western Cape High Court has eight late judgments. Judge Robert La-Grange of the Cape Town Labour Court had ten outstanding judgements as at 31 December 2022, but two believe since been delivered. Judge Edwin Tlhotlhalemaje of the Johannesburg High Court had 16 late reserved judgments at the conclude of 2022 but has delivered ten since then and one matter from November 2021 was withdrawn.
Meanwhile, the Polokwane High Court had nine reserved judgments, none of which were late. The high courts in Bloemfontein and Middelburg also had no late judgments.
These might be underestimated because judges use an honour scheme to notify courts that they gain reserved a judgment.
Constitutional Court
According to the December 2022 report the Constitutional Court only has one judgment outstanding longer than six months.
But as of 7 June 2023, the situation appears to gain deteriorated. According to the Constitutional Court’s website, there are nine judgments outstanding since November 2022 or earlier. These are:
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Sepukku
Diary of an Englishman after he moves to South Africa….
**August 1**: Just got transferred with work from London, UK to our new home in Phalaborwa, Limpopo, South Africa. Now this is a town that knows how to live! Beautiful, sunny days and warm, balmy evenings. I watched the sunset from a deckchair by our pool yesterday. It was beautiful. I’ve finally found my new home. I love it here.
**September 1:** Really heating up now. It got to 31 today. No problem though. Living in air-conditioned home, driving air-conditioned car. What a pleasure to see the sun every day like this. I’m turning into a sun-worshipper – no blasted rain like back in London! Had the back yard landscaped with tropical plants today. Lots of palms and rocks. No more mowing lawns for me! Another scorcher today, but I love it here. It’s Paradise !
**October 1:** The temperature hasn’t been below 35 all week. How do people get used to this kind of heat? At least today it’s windy though. Keeps the flies off a bit. Acclimatizing is taking longer than we expected. Fell asleep by the pool yesterday. Got third degree burns over 60% of my body. Missed three days off work. What a dumb thing to do. Got to respect the old sun in a climate like this!
**October 25:** This wind is a bastard. It feels like a giant fucking blow dryer. And it’s hot as hell! The home air conditioner is on the blink and the repair man charged R200 just to drive over and tell me he needs to order parts from @#$# Johannesburg. The wife & the kids are complaining.
**October 30:** The temperature’s up around 40 and the parts still haven’t arrived for the fucking air conditioner. House is an oven so we’ve all been sleeping outside by the pool for 3 nights now. Bleeding R4 million house and we can’t even go inside. Why the hell did I ever come here?
**November 4:** Finally got the fucking air-conditioner fixed. It cost R1,500 and gets the temperature down to around 35 degrees. Stupid repairman. Fucking thief. If one more smart bastard says ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I’m going to fucking throttle him. Fucking heat! By the time I get to work, the car radiator is boiling over, my fucking clothes are soaking fucking wet and I smell like baked cat. Fucking place is the end of the Earth.
**November 9:** Tried to run some errands after work, wore shorts, and sat on the black leather upholstery in my car. I thought my fucking backside was on fire. I lost 2 layers of flesh, all the hair on the backs of my legs and off my fucking behind. Now the car smells like burnt hair, fried bum and baked cat. The Weather report might as well be a fucking recording – hot and sunny. Hot and sunny, Hot and fucking sunny. It’s been too hot to do anything for 2 bleeding months and the weatherman says it might really warm up next week. Fuck!!
**November 15:** Doesn’t it ever rain in this darn place? Water restrictions will be next, so my R5,000 worth of palms might just dry up and blow into the fucking pool. The only things that thrive in this hell-hole are the fucking flies. You don’t dare open your mouth for fear of swallowing half a dozen of the little buzzards!
**November 20:** Welcome to HELL! It got to 45 degrees today. Now the air conditioner is gone in my car. The repair man came to fix it and said, ‘Hot enough for you today?’ I wanted to shove the car up his backside. Anyway, had to spend the R2,500 of the mortgage payment to bail me out of jail for assaulting the stupid fool. Fucking PHALABORWA! What kind of sick, demented idiot would want to live here!
**December 1:** WHAT!!!! The FIRST day of Summer!!!!
You are fucking kidding me, right?
Show Off
So I\’m real good friends with this guy named Juan Ted. Now, Juan is a pretty improbable guy. He can steal ANYTHING he wants to. Literally anything. It could be the shirt off your back, the wallet in your pocket, or I\’m even sure he\’d find a way to steal your house (And your spouse too). So anyway, one day Juan and I are sitting around watching TV, and they announced that the hope diamond will not be on display anymore and is now getting moved to an undisclosed location. So as we hear this, Juan says \”I\’m gonna steal it\”. Now I know how good Juan is at this kind of stuff, so I just tell him good luck and he goes on his way. Eventually he narrows his search down to a small cave in South Africa. When Juan gets there, he doesn\’t see any guards or anything outside the cave, so he just walks in assuming he was wrong about where the diamond was. He wanders around for a while until he sees a long lit hallway with the hope diamond at the end of it. Confident in his abilities, he strolls over to the diamond and picks it up before realizing its a trap! Suddenly, red lights flashed, armed men came running out, sirens went off. You could hear one of the men say under his breath \”We finally caught Juan Ted.\” But Juan, being the best thief in the world, said \”Not quite. On the count of three, I will disappear.\” As the men looked around confused, Juan began to count. \”Uno. Dos.\” And he disappeared without a tres.