Advocates cry foul over state of high court

Six months after the government acknowledged the dire state of the Mthatha High Court, advocates in the city have accused politicians of ignoring their plight.

The dilapidated building, lack of security and shortage of judges has meant restricting the number of cases heard on the motion court roll each week, and this has repeatedly been highlighted by legal practitioners.

Complaints culminated in a flurry of visits to Mthatha by Minister of Justice Michael Masutha, his deputy John Jeffery, and Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng at the beginning of February this year.

This week, however, the Transkei Society of Advocates weighed in on the subject again, saying they had had no feedback from politicians or officials about their concerns.

The crumbling, run-down high court building, and risks posed by poor security measures at the court, had apparently not been taken forward, said society chairman Advocate Vusumzi Msiwa.

Despite a fatal breakout attempt by prisoners at the court before, Msiwa said: “Nothing has pricked the conscience of the government to provide a safe environment for the people in the court. We are concerned with the safety of judges, staff and litigants.”

But Jeffery said on Friday: “I don’t feel the criticism is valid. They’ve had a fair amount of attention for the issues they’ve raised and have received visits from the minister, from myself and from the chief justice.

“If they say that they’ve communicated with me and I haven’t responded, I am not aware of that,” he said.

He said the department of public works was in the process of planning the necessary work programme for the court.

Msiwa said the advocates remained unhappy about the shortage of judges, which was among their early concerns. This had also been blamed for the lack of circuit courts to places like Butterworth, Port St John’s, Mbizana, Lady Grey and Ntabankulu.

“Justice doesn’t have to be centralised in the Mthatha High Court. These circuit courts are in line with the constitutional imperatives that justice must be accessible and be seen to be done,” he said.

Jeffery said the imminent appointment of a permanent deputy judge-president for Mthatha would free up a post for an acting judge in the court, which would assist with court rolls.

He said it was difficult commenting on the circuit court issue until he had an idea of the number of potential cases emanating from those areas.

Msiwa said the judiciary had done away with the practice note restricting the number of cases allowed on the motion court roll each week, but “there is no courtesy to even advise us of that. But we can see that it has been done away with”.

Jeffery promised to provide case throughput statistics for the various high courts in the Eastern Cape. — rayh@dispatch.co.za