The Consumers Association of Penang is seriously concerned about the reported inordinate delays in our judicial system which have adversely affected members of the public who have taken their grievances to court or who have been taken to court.

At present, once the public subject themselves to the system they are - metaphorically speaking - held captive within it. Even a prisoner will know the period of his incarceration; but for those who turn to the legal system for redress or are brought to it, their period of waiting and anxiety is indeterminable.

From the information gathered over the years by CAP - from cases that have come to CAP, from information given by complainants and from discussions with practicing lawyers - we find that delays have occurred during the different stages of the adjudication process, from the commencement of cases to their conclusion. Some examples are as below.

  • Delay by judicial officers to provide grounds of their judgment within a reasonable period of time so that appeals can proceed promptly, resulting in appeals being heard some years after the decisions of the court/tribunal.

  • Appeals take years to get fixed for hearing, although all documents are in order. This happens frequently in the High Court and the Appeals Court.

  • Adjournments by judicial officers due to various reasons, including them suddenly having to attend courses. Judicial officers going on leave do not give due notice to the parties involved or their lawyers. Courses for judicial officers should be scheduled ahead so that they can then plan and avoid fixing hearing dates during the period when they are absent.

  • Judicial officers not giving a decision immediately after oral submissions on uncomplicated issues and directing that written submissions be filed by the parties. They then fix the date for decision some two or three months later. In many instances, both parties can orally submit on the issues. Properly trained and experienced judicial officers should be able to understand and appreciate the arguments and decide the matter on the spot, rather than adjourning the matter to another date resulting in delay and inconvenience to parties and an overloading the court's workload. This, it seems, was the practice in the not-too-distant past.

  • Files get lost in court and considerable time is wasted in locating them. In some cases, if files cannot be found, they need to be reconstructed and this also takes time.

  • Court clerks go missing when litigants come to the court to inquire about their cases. Often, you will find lawyers and litigants hovering around court registries waiting for the relevant officer to attend to them. Many a time, the particular officer will be on leave or will simply just not be at his/her place. No other officer is willing to assist. Time is wasted unnecessarily.

  • Lawyers taking on too many cases. Some just take on too many cases and allow several cases to be fixed on the same date, without knowing for sure whether some of the cases will be settled or adjourned. Then they apply for adjournments on the ground that they are engaged in another court.

  • Lawyers using delaying tactics. Some lawyers use delaying tactics eg, by filing affidavits or applications at the last moment, forcing the other party or the court to adjourn the matter to address the new issues raised.

  • Lawyers repeatedly raising technical and procedural objections and after decision is delivered in the first instance, appealing to the higher courts. Substantive issues remain unresolved for years pending a final decision on the procedural objections.

  • When orders or judgments are obtained, lawyers are required to prepare drafts and after having them approved by all parties, these drafts are to be sent to the court for approval, after which a fair copy is then filed. There have been many instances where there have been delays in approving these draft orders or extraction of fair orders/judgments.

    • We believe that the above examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Members of the public have their own stories to tell about their pain and suffering, having to wait years for their cases to be resolved.

    We strongly urge the chief justice and the minister in charge of law to take proactive steps to resolve the problem of delays in court procedures and hearings. We need a committee consisting of judicial officers, lawyers, jurists, public representatives and court management experts to study the root causes of the delay and make recommendations for eliminating them.

    The recommendations should include a mechanism for continuous monitoring of the decision- making process in order to eliminate weaknesses before they become problematic. Training of judicial officers on the hearing and deciding of cases and in writing judgments is essential for a proper and efficient functioning of the judicial system.

    This is not just a matter of 'justice delayed (being) justice denied' but is also a form of abuse.

    The writer is president, Consumers Association of Penang.