News / National
Zim Supreme Court taking excessively long time to deliver judgment
05 Dec 2011 at 06:47hrs | Views
The Supreme Court is taking an excessively long time to deliver judgments with some cases taking an average of between 14 months and 4 years, therefore rendering the judgments academic when finally handed down.
The Supreme Court has 8 judges, including the Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice. Out of the 8 judges, Elizabeth Gwaunza has been seconded to an international tribunal and Rita Makarau is the head of the secretariat of the Judicial Services Commission, effectively leaving the court with 6 judges.
The court handled 87 cases between October 2006 and January 2011, which translates to about 22 cases a year.
"The average time to produce even the simplest of judgments appears to be a matter of around 14 months," the documents suggest.
"This surely is detrimental to justice. Putting off dealing with a case means that by the time the judge gets around to doing so, he or she no longer has the details freshly in mind."
The documents reveal that the court is capable of churning out judgments quickly if judges applied themselves to the matters with a sense of urgency.
The Supreme Court has 8 judges, including the Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice. Out of the 8 judges, Elizabeth Gwaunza has been seconded to an international tribunal and Rita Makarau is the head of the secretariat of the Judicial Services Commission, effectively leaving the court with 6 judges.
The court handled 87 cases between October 2006 and January 2011, which translates to about 22 cases a year.
"This surely is detrimental to justice. Putting off dealing with a case means that by the time the judge gets around to doing so, he or she no longer has the details freshly in mind."
The documents reveal that the court is capable of churning out judgments quickly if judges applied themselves to the matters with a sense of urgency.
Source - Independent,
