South African courts overwhelmed with a number of cases that need to go to trial.

There continues to be mixed reaction to the directive of the Office of the Judiciary that civil matters must first go through mediation before going to trial. This as an attempt to ease severe delays in the courts, which until now have caused new cases to be set down for trial in 2031. About 150-thousand cases are reportedly to have been settled in a year in the South Gauteng region alone. For more on this we spoke to Advocate Lizelle Haskins, publicity secretary at the National Association of Democratic Lawyers of South Africa.