High court trials delayed over shortage of judges

JOHANNESBURG - Justice delayed is justice denied is the old adage.

However, what happens when there simply is not a judge to hear your case?

That is the reality in the Western Cape.

The High Court was forced to postpone over 10 matters on Monday.

READ: Office of Chief Justice releases report on reserved judgments

Judges Matter researcher Mbekezeli Benjamin says that this is a nationwide problem and is worse in the Western Cape.

"Some of the cases that were supposed to run this week all the way through to September involve gang-related crime and that is a very complex crime," says Benjamin.

"There are multiple witnesses, there are about 32 witnesses, there are about ten accused and all of them are high-risk and high security accused," he added.

This, according to Benjamin, is a big problem as there are about 30 judges at any one time and the population of the Western Cape is quite large.