All set for opening of 2022 Legal Year

Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
ALL is set for the opening of the 2022 Legal Year today with legal experts saying it is their hope that in his keynote address Chief Justice Luke Malaba will address issues to do with delays in the delivery of judgments and how the courts are adopting Information Communication Technologies (ICTs).

Chief Justice Malaba is expected to deliver the State of Judiciary Address marking the start of the Legal Year.

The Chief Justice will lead the main proceedings in Harare at the Constitutional Court while the Deputy Chief Justice, Constitutional Court judges, and the Judge President will preside at provincial levels where there is a High Court.

A Chronicle news crew yesterday observed Judicial Service Commission (JSC) employees making last minute touches ahead of today’s event at the Bulawayo High Court.

Legal practitioners said the opening of the Legal Year was very important as it spells out the tone for the year.

Bulawayo lawyer, Mr Godfrey Nyoni from Moyo and Nyoni Legal Practitioners said the opening of the legal calendar was important as the sector needs to take stock of its performance.

“The most important thing is that it sets the tone for the legal year and the Chief Justice reviews the performance of the High Court in the previous year. I believe it is very important for any institution to review itself and look at how it performed so that it can determine whether it needs to improve and in which areas it needs to improve,” said Mr Nyoni.

He said the country’s courts need to deal with issues of delays in the delivery of judgments and expressed hope that the Chief Justice will touch on strategies the JSC is implementing to address the matter.

“Some of the things that we look forward to is the issue of delivering judgments by the High Court on time, the decentralisation of the High Court. So far, we know there is now a Mutare High Court, Masvingo, Bulawayo, Harare and one that is about to be set up in Chinhoyi. Hopefully they will set up another one in Gweru and recruit more judges,” he said.

“If they recruit more judges, it will assist because judges are under pressure and understandably so. People know of their rights and are litigating a lot. There are so many disputes and in an economy that has been facing challenges there is a lot of litigation that is going on. So as the number of cases increase the judges come under pressure.”

Mr Nyoni said there is a need for the country to further decentralise the High Court

“In Hwange for instance there is sometimes a High Court circuit so all those places which have had circuits, if they are turned into permanent courts that will create less pressure on judges. When judges have less pressure, it means they will have more time to research and deliver quality judgments,” said Mr Nyoni.

Constitutional lawyer and law lecturer Professor Lovemore Madhuku said the opening of the legal year should set out the vision of the country’s judiciary.

“It is very important that at the beginning of the year the Chief Justice and his team lay out a vision of the judiciary which takes us forward. We must every year move a step forward and we must always be better than the previous year. So, it’s important for us to see how the leadership in the judiciary has set out to improve the judicial year this year. After hearing what they will say we must be in a position to support them depending on how they put across their vision,” said Prof Madhuku.

He said there have been cases where judgments are delayed, something that has to be addressed.

“My main expectation is wanting to hear what measures they are putting in place to keep improving speedy delivery of justice. We are still experiencing delays in the handing down of judgments and completion of cases,” he said.

Another lawyer, Mr Dumisani Dube of Mathonsi Ncube Law Chambers said the opening of the legal year is important as it reviews the performance of the fraternity.

“The Chief Justice gives a summary of cases that were finalised the previous year, statistics of the number of pending cases that are before the courts. It also touches on the number of divorce cases. Previously, the Chief Justice used to review the performance of judges,” said Mr Dube.

He said his expectations are that the Chief Justice addresses issues to do with judgements backlog while setting out rules on the handling of commercial cases.

Mr Dube said there is also a need to spell out the measures the JSC has taken to handle cases electronically as courts have largely used hard copies.

“We want to hear more on the adoption of e-filing and following modern trends. Also, we want to hear more on decentralisation of courts.” said Mr Dube. — @nqotshili