Moffat Mungazi
Trust Maanda
Legal Position
IN order to be effective, justice must be obtained speedily.
If justice is delayed and dispensed much later, it is as good as denied.
The Constitution of Zimbabwe in Section 69 made a speedy hearing a human right.
Cases must be heard and rulings on them made speedily in order for justice to be regarded as providing solutions to men and women who come to its aid.
Section 69 of the Constitution provides for the right to a fair hearing in this way: (1) Every person accused of an offence has the right to a fair and public trial within a reasonable time before an independent and impartial court.
(2) In the determination of civil rights and obligations, every person has a right to a fair, speedy and public hearing within a reasonable time before an independent and impartial court, tribunal or other forum established by law.
This means that whether a matter is criminal or civil, a trial must be held within a reasonable time and a remedy in civil matters must be speedily granted.
A fair trial has to be speedy.
It is not fair for someone to have a claim in which they seek a remedy to be granted well after the harm they sought to stop has happened.
It is not fair for a creditor who sues for his money to get it when it has lost its value or even when the currency is no longer in use, all because of the delay in the dispensing of the justice.
“Justice delayed is justice denied” is a phrase used to mean that if legal redress or equitable relief to an injured party is available, but is not forthcoming in a timely manner, it is effectively the same as having no remedy at all.
In Mpofu v Director of the Salary Service Bureau and 2 Others HH50/2023) the court said: Suffice that compliance has been outstanding for a very long period and the applicant’s complaint that justice delayed is justice denied has basis. I thus endeavoured to prepare this judgment within a day as to show that the justice delivery system is still functional and takes the litigants’ quest for justice seriously”.
This principle is the basis for the right to a speedy trial and similar rights which are meant to expedite the legal system, because of the unfairness for the injured party who sustained the injury having little hope for timely and effective remedy and resolution.
Adjudicators who act too slowly in resolving legal issues render the remedy to be only available in theory and irrelevant and ineffectual.
Confidence in the courts is essential to maintain the public order in that people resort to civilised ways of resolving disputes.
Inefficiency and delay in dispensing of justice drain even a just judgment of its value; and people will lose their faith in the law’s ability to fulfil its primary function to protect them.
People may take the law into their own hands.
Statutes and court rules have tried to control the tendency to delay justice; and judges may be subject to oversight and even discipline for persistent failures to decide matters timely.
Sometimes it is due to the complexity of the case that courts sit on a matter for a long time before they deliver judgment.
Sometimes the delays are due to huge backlog of cases, many witnesses who testified, voluminous nature of record of proceedings in an endeavour to write a judgment or complexity of the case.
In order for the court not to excessively delay the rendering of decisions, Judicial Service (Code of Ethics) Regulations, 2012 has provided that where a judgment is reserved to be delivered on notice, the judicial officer shall use his or her best efforts to ensure that such judgment is delivered within the next ninety (90) days and, except in unusual and exceptional circumstances, no judgment shall be delivered later than one hundred and eighty (180) days from the date when it is reserved.
In order to avoid the delay in the giving of reasons courts sometimes resort to delivering an order and state that reasons for the decision would follow.
The reasons may then take years to follow, while a litigant would be curious to know why he or she lost, or even won.
Litigants sometimes delay in finalisation of matters.
A defendant would want to buy as much time as he or she can.
They can and make all sorts of excuses for the matter to be postponed.
They can make as many interlocutory applications as possible.
Others file appeals and abandon them but the delay to the enforcement of the judgment would have been achieved.
Trust Maanda is a legal practitioner and a partner at Maunga Maanda And Associates. He writes in his personal capacity. He can be contacted on +263772432646.
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