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Midlands Correspondent
BULAWAYO High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha, has lamented the shortage of judges in the Southern part of the country, which he said was contributing to the delay in the completion of cases.

Speaking during the opening of 2015 legal year at Gweru High Court Circuit yesterday, Justice Kamocha said there was a heavy workload for the Bulawayo High Court, which had a complement of five judges.

The judges were supposed to handle criminal and civil cases from Bulawayo, Midlands, Matabeleland North and South provinces.

He said this had resulted in the judges failing to conclude cases and sometimes taking longer than expected to reach verdicts of some of the cases.

“The five judges handle criminal and civil cases from the whole of the four provinces. The judges also deal with all criminal and civil appeals from all magistrates’ courts in the five provinces, criminal and civil reviews, bail applications, cases transferred from the magistrates’ courts to the High Court for sentence, pre-trial conferences, contested court applications, urgent chamber applications among other cases.

“What it means is that here is a very heavy workload for the five judges,” he said.

Justice Kamocha’s remarks came in the wake of Judge President Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku’s announcement that six judges would soon be appointed to curb the heavy workload on judges.

Justice Kamocha said the dire situation was being worsened by limited time allocated for circuit courts as well as unavailability of permanent courts.

He said the rate at which offences were being committed was not matching the rate at which cases were being cleared.

“Due to the above, it takes too long for cases to be set down for trial due to unavailability of a permanent court and by the time cases are set down for trial six to eight years later the accused and witnesses would have moved to other areas while some would have died,” he said.

Justice Kamocha said Bulawayo High Court and its circuit courts had handled 4 761 cases last year, of which 3 420 were cleared leaving a backlog of 1 341 pending cases.

“A total of 155 trial cases were received and of these, 104 were finalised and 51 are still pending.

“There were 235 bail applications and of these, 161 were finalised leaving 74 pending. A total of 2 404 criminal review files were received and 2 338 were processed leaving a carry-over of 66.

“We had 1 967 criminal appeals filed and 817 have been dealt with, leaving a balance of 1 150,” he said.

Justice Kamocha said they also dealt with 475 unopposed divorce applications last year.