Justice delayed is justice denied. This is a saying repeated so many times in the public discourse that, for some, it has lost its meaning.
Yet it remains profound as it explains, in the simplest of ways, why delays in the application of the justice system can be prejudicial to parties involved in the matter as well as the public.
Two judges are before a Judicial Conduct Tribunal, which is investigating potentially impeachable conduct in connection with their alleged failure to release judgments in time. The two justices, Tshifhiwa Maumela and Nomonde Mngqibisa-Thusi, are suspended on the recommendations of the Judicial Service Commission to President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The hearing into the complaint against Maumela began on Monday and is expected to run until the end of the week. Appearing before the tribunal on Monday was Gauteng judge president Dunstan Mlambo, who outlined his office’s concerns with Maumela’s delayed judgments, some dating back to 2016.
Maumela shot to prominence as the presiding judge in the first Senzo Meyiwa murder trial. According to the judge president’s testimony, Maumela was not supposed to hear the matter, but did so after apparently defying his seniors.
The judge president told the tribunal that by the time the Meyiwa case came before his division, he had already concluded that Maumela should not be given work that would be onerous to him. And since the matter was then allocated to Maumela to case-manage it, the judge president and his deputy decided that once he had managed the matter to trial readiness, Maumela would then revert to them to decide which judge would be allocated the matter. However, that never happened, and once Maumela finished case-managing the matter, he went straight to trial, the judge president said.
It is still early days in the tribunal and Maumela is still to give his side of the story. But considering how long the Meyiwa murder saga has dragged, it is sad to learn that the pain the Meyiwa family and his fans have had to endure all these years as a result of the delay could partially have been caused by the conduct of a judicial officer.
After years of little progress in the police investigation, the matter finally came before the courts in 2021. But it soon became clear that the family and all who loved Meyiwa were not about to finally find out who killed the soccer hero, and why, due to the many delays in the trial. As if to rub salt into the wound, the trial had to start from scratch after the president’s decision to suspend judge Maumela on the commission’s recommendations.
Though the tribunal is yet to determine whether Maumela’s conduct is impeachable and whether he was justified to go ahead with the trial after his seniors had apparently advised that he should not, the judge president’s testimony is troubling as it suggests the judge has not only been negligent in not delivering his judgments in time, but has defied his colleagues even to the point where justice has been delayed.
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