Highlights of the speech:

• In the last week the judicial task team that is going to revise the practice manual and integrate all directives into one document has started working.  The new revised practice manual will do away with all of the directives and will be applicable to both the Pretoria and Johannesburg Divisions.
• Steps to make mediation more mainstream are well in advance.  It is of the utmost importance that the legal profession grasps the importance of mediation as a mainstream technique in dispute resolution.
• The Road Accident Fund has indicated through its CEO that it is going to commit itself to mediate its disputes.
• The approach of streamlining work where it's able to be done (and as is currently done with the family court) will be expanded to other fields, such as insolvency matters. This approach provides a tailor-made procedure for quick turnover and rapid decision making and, in turn, supports the commercial and/or other activity that is anterior to the litigation.
• The judicial leadership finds itself in a triage exercise trying to balance imperfectly the demands that exist on a macro level whilst at the same time staring into the face of the unacceptability that men and woman of ordinary means who are dependent in the most poignant way on the system the state provides to look after them when in need, is unable to deliver.
• The tiresome rules and directives the legal profession has been burdened with are not there because the judicial leadership is intrinsically bureaucratically inclined, but rather because they must leverage the few judges available to get the most out of them.  The profession is therefore required to fit in with what effectively is industrial scale litigation done by too few people (Judges) to do so.
• Options that must be brought into being to improve the status quo:
  • Increasing the judicial compliment:  There seems to be no funds available to do this, and Judges do not grow on trees. Even if the funds were to become available, it would take more than 5 years to find and appoint the 20 Judges in Pretoria and 20 Judges in Johannesburg which is required to overcome the capacity challenges faced by our courts and which has led to new trial dates now being allocated for 2030.
  • Diversion of work away from litigation by way of mediation.
  • Diversion of work away from litigation of by way of an expanded arbitration realm:  Changing the law to allow for arbitration appeals to be heard by the court, thus making arbitration more affordable and more attractive.
  • Changing the law to have permanent Judges appointed on the same strict terms that are used now for all other Judges, but on a part time basis.
  • Moving Road Accident Fund litigation to a special tribunal.
  • The way that trials are run need a radical shape–up:  All matters must start on notice of motion and all evidence to be given on affidavit.  Move to a single expert system.

• Legal practitioners were called upon to, themselves, craft a litigation system that will work for them and the people they serve; to reshape the way that litigation is conducted for the better.  It is in this context that the organized profession has an important role to play.

Information prepared for publishing by the PAA High Court Committee.