Gauteng deputy judge president Ronald Sutherland on Friday issued a directive that all Johannesburg high court hearings will be held virtually for the foreseeable future because of load-shedding
Gauteng deputy judge president Ronald Sutherland on Friday issued a directive that all Johannesburg high court hearings will be held virtually for the foreseeable future because of load-shedding and the failure of the relevant government departments to mitigate its effect on the court.
Sutherland said the office of the chief justice and the department of public works have not provided the court with a generator that can sustain operations during extended rolling power cuts.
“Regrettably it has become necessary to issue new directives concerning the holding of physical and video-link hearings,” he said in a directive to all judges and officials in the division, bar associations and the office of the state attorney.
“This is the result of the effect of Eskom load-shedding on the court building and the failure of the office of the chief justice [OCJ] and the department of public works to provide the court with a reliable generator which could cover the periods of outages.
“Effective immediately, the default mode for hearing of all matters shall be by video-link.”
Virtual hearings would remain the norm until the two departments could offer the court adequate back-up, Sutherland said.
“This arrangement shall continue until the OCJ and the department of public works can provide appropriate back-up facilities to cater for load-shedding. No indication can be given of when that might eventuate, if at all,” he said.
He apologised to all affected parties: “On behalf of the judiciary and the registry staff, I offer an apology for the grossly inadequate service being made available to the litigating public. I appeal to the profession to endure the disruption and inconvenience with patience.”
A member of the legal profession remarked that it was obvious on Thursday that load-shedding was interfering with transcription services during the hearing of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s application for an interdict to halt steps by former president Jacob Zuma to haul him before court in a private prosecution.
“That’s a problem when you want to appeal because you need the transcripts. It is one of the biggest issues you will have with no power,” the lawyer said.
Sutherland said presiding judges may instruct that hearings be held in person, after consulting the parties. Litigants may also offer suitable alternative venues for matters to be heard in person, provided that these are to the satisfaction of the judge hearing their case.
The office of the chief justice said the court had two generators and the interruption during Thursday’s hearing was the result of one overheating.
“The Johannesburg high court has two generators which were installed in 2009, which are functional,” it said.
“Facilities inclusive of generators are still part of the shared services that resort within the mandate of DoJ&CD [the department of justice and correctional services] in conjunction with the department of public works and infrastructure.”
The OCJ added that it remained reliant on public works to schedule maintenance and “attend to repairs when the need arises”.
“The failure during the proceedings of 12 January 2023 was attributed to the generator overheating and has since been reported to the DPWI for attention.”
The department of public works could not comment immediately but said it would do so during the course of the weekend.
Virtual court sittings were the norm while Covid-19 restrictions were in place but courts returned to in-person hearings at the end of the second court term in 2022.
Eskom is implementing stage six load-shedding until further notice.
This updates earlier story, with comment from the office of the chief justice.