A Pretoria law firm is heading to the Constitutional Court in a bid to overturn practice directives issued by the Gauteng High Court in January which restrict the number of cases a law firm can enrol per day.
Gert Nel Incorporated Attorneys, represented by attorney Gert Nel, said in an affidavit submitted to the Concourt that the directives infringed on the right of litigants to access the court.
The directives, issued by Judge President Dunstan Mlambo, pertain to both the Pretoria and Johannesburg divisions.
In terms of the directives, each law firm may only apply for a maximum of five matters per court roll a day. This is capped to a combined total of 20 matters per division, per day.
These restrictions do not include urgent applications. A limit of 40 warrants of execution and subpoenas, per firm, may be issued per day.
Nel said limiting the number of trial date applications impedes access to justice for people seeking legal recourse. “If attorneys are restricted in the number of hearing date applications, it may result in delays for clients, prolonging the resolution of their legal matters,” he said.
Nel said he understood that the idea behind these directives was to ease the flow of the congested court rolls, but he said restricting hearing date applications does not address the root cause of inefficiency within the legal system.
It is well known that the Gauteng division of the high court is one of the busiest in the country, with a bursting court roll, especially with Road Accident Fund (RAF) matters.
Nel has now approached the Constitutional Court directly to intervene in what he describes as “one of the single biggest infringements of South African citizens’ constitutional right to access courts”.
Nel said every person has the right to have any dispute that can be resolved by the application of law decided in a fair public hearing before a court, or where appropriate, another independent and impartial tribunal or forum.
“The right of access to courts ensures that litigants are not barred by procedural, legal or other obstacles from obtaining just and equitable relief from courts. The efficient management and administration of the court system is essential for efficiently delivering justice,” he added.
In contesting the validity of the practice directives, he argued that it curbed the constitutional rights of people wanting to access the courts and led to costly delays.
Nel commented that the RAF rarely settles matters directly, and legal practitioners representing road crash victims are wholly dependent on the allocation of trial dates to settle their clients’ matters.
“As the practice directives stand, the RAF is being protected at the expense of all road crash victims, with limitations being imposed on the number of applications for court dates, leading to a huge bottleneck of unresolved matters,” said Nel.
He said as things stand, the rolls are so congested that the next available trial dates are only in November 2026.
“This is after having to wait two to three years, only to be told your matter will only be heard some years down the road. This will, unfortunately for many road crash victims, be too late.”
The law firm asserted that Directive 1 of 2024 (the latest in a myriad of previous directives) represents an encroachment into the realm of legislative authority and constitutes an overreach of judicial power.
The law firm, however, still has to cross the first bridge in its legal bid as the Constitutional Court will first have to decide whether it would grant the firm direct access to court.
Pretoria News