The file that lives in two places
An electronic bundle is a blessing when it works. It is also a new way of losing a page. If the only copy of an annexure is on a laptop that cannot charge, the litigant has not been heard. The Rules still assume paper unless a practice directive says otherwise. Directives help. They do not switch the lights back on.
Virtual appearances, used well, spare a rural witness a six-hour taxi. Used badly, they become a hearing in which nobody can see the complainant’s face. A protection-order return, a children’s-court interview, or the evidence of a person in custody should not be taken on a telephone in a passage if the room can still be made safe.
Load-shedding, water outages and a court that cannot print an order by 16:00 are section 34 issues, and they are section 165(4) issues. Organs of state must assist the courts. A working generator is assistance. A circular about resilience is not.
A working method for a dark afternoon
• Keep a paper list of the morning’s orders. The system will not always reprint them.
• If a witness is on a screen, say so on the record, and say whether you could see and hear them.
• Do not punish a litigant for a portal that the court itself cannot open.
• Adjourn with a date, not with a hope that “the system will be up”.
• Tell the senior. A dark court that nobody reports is a dark court that stays dark.
The future of the roll is electronic. The present of the roll is still a person who walked to the building. Hold both thoughts at once, and the afternoon is usually survivable.
A note from Neelan Karikan. Authority stems from action, even when the honest action is to adjourn because the lights have gone. A circular about resilience has never taken a plea.