Judgments pending: Injia

 By DEMAS TIEN 

There are 50 judgments pending in the Supreme Court and 297 reserved judgments waiting for decisions to be delivered in the National Court, it has been revealed. 

Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia said the outstanding Supreme Court judgments dated back to 2012 and 2013 and the outstanding National Court decisions went back as far as 10 years ago. 

Sir Salamo said the main reason for the delays of judgments was poor time management by judges and lawyers. 

“A case that is before the court must start on time and for that to happen, lawyers and judges must be physically present in the courtroom to start the case on time,” Sir Salamo said.

“Cases are lost or won by loss of time. Lawyers are punished for contempt for loss of time. Judges miss the opportunity to decide an important case by loss of time. Even when a case is started on time, the parties suffer losses because judges and lawyers waste time mooting over trivial or peripheral issues that occupy time and the main case is never reached in time.

“As I speak, there are many judgments outstanding for far too long. 

“There are far too many letters of concern reaching my office over delayed judgments.”

Sir Salamo urged new lawyers that were admitted into the bar last Friday to be “a good pupil of time”. 

He also told the lawyers who were already in the field to be time conscious.

He urged the judges who were sitting on long delayed judgments to be time conscious.

Only if the judges and lawyers were conscious of their time would help pass the judgements.