South Africa: More Than Half of the Country's Outstanding Rulings Are By Acting Judges

30 June 2026
GroundUp (Cape Town)
By Marecia Damons

The Pretoria Division of the Gauteng High Court had the highest number of late judgments, with 54 matters outstanding for longer than six months.

Acting judges continue to account for more than half of the backlog in the number of late court judgments across the country.

Judgment was reserved in 1,778 matters, of which 301 had been outstanding for more than six months. This is one fewer than the 302 late judgments recorded in the previous term.

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The latest report reflects the situation at the start of the fourth court term: 1 November 2025 for the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court of Appeal and Labour Appeal Court, and 6 October for the High Court, Labour Courts and Land Court.

The Judicial Norms and Standards require that every effort be made to hand down judgment within three months and that judgments generally not be reserved without a delivery date. GroundUp and the Office of the Chief Justice use a more lenient six-month benchmark.

The Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria had the highest number of late judgments, with 54 matters outstanding for longer than six months. This was followed by the Labour Court in Johannesburg with 44 and the North West High Court in Mahikeng with 28.

While there was a slight drop in the Constitutional Court, it still had the highest proportion of late judgments. Ten of its 28 reserved matters had been outstanding for more than six months. The country's apex court has become increasingly slow. An analysis by Freedom Under Law attributed the delays to a growing workload, capacity constraints and inefficiencies.

Several courts had no late judgments, including the Land Court, Electoral Court, Labour Appeal Court, Competition Appeal Court and the Mpumalanga Local Division in Middelburg.

More than half of all late judgments were by acting judges. Of the 301 matters outstanding for more than six months, 152 were by acting judges.

The problem was particularly stark in the labour courts. Acting judges were responsible for 77 of the 85 late judgments across all divisions. The latest figures suggest this is an ongoing problem.

In the North West High Court in Mahikeng, five matters initially reserved by acting judges were reallocated to other judges before judgment was eventually delivered.

Acting Labour Court Judge Lindiwe Vukeya had the highest number of late judgments, with 13 matters outstanding for more than six months, followed by acting Judge M Kumalo of the Johannesburg Labour Court with ten and Judge Andrew Reddy of the North West High Court with nine.

Read the original article on GroundUp.

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