By Kevin O’Reilly

The Pretoria Attorneys Association (PAA) held a Conference on the Gauteng Division Consolidated Practice Directive 1 of 2024 on 16 February 2024. Chairperson of the PAA, Vijayta Rana, welcomed attendees to the conference and said the PAA assists members by being a collective voice and liaising with public bodies such as the courts, the Deeds Office, Master’s Office, and Companies and Intellectual Property Commission. Its aim is to keep members abreast of changes in the function of these bodies by regularly sending circulars affecting members and their practices and having stakeholder meetings regularly. Furthermore, it endeavours to always act in the best interest of its members by assisting them in the daily challenges they experience.

Chairperson of the Pretoria Attorneys Association, Vijayta Rana, welcoming attendees at the Conference on Consolidated Practice Directive 1 of 2024.

Ms Rana said the PAA comes together with a shared commitment to upholding the principles entrenched in the Constitution. ‘Today is no different, as we gather here with the new practice directive that is intended to improve uniformity, promote best practice, assist with court and case flow management, and inform stakeholders and all those you participate and take an interest in the court system,’ she said. Ms Rana said that as members of the legal profession, legal practitioners are not just interpreters of the law, but architects of society where justice is a beacon that guides their actions. She noted that their decisions shape the legal landscape, influencing the course of jurisprudence and set precedents that will endure for generations.

Member of the PAA’s Executive Committee and head of the PAA’s High Court Committee, Nicolette de Witt, delivered a comprehensive two-part talk on the new Consolidated Practice Directive 1 of 2024, which came into effect on 26 February 2024. She provided detailed guidance to the attendees on the directive and explained the underlying rationale behind the procedures. This directive will supersede all previous directives. She noted the goal of the conference was to offer training to practitioners before they commence working with the document to ensure compliance with the directive. She pointed out that non-compliance would be condoned by judges until 31 March 2024.

Member of the Pretoria Attorneys Association Executive Committee, Nicolette de Witt, speaking at the Conference on Consolidated Practice Directive 1 of 2024.

Attendees were given the opportunity to raise specific issues they were struggling with such as difficulty in uploaded documents or renaming files on the CaseLines system.

Ms de Witt started off by noting that from 2018, there have been 33 practice directives. This latest directive now consolidates all the court’s requirements for management of matters into a single document. ‘I think we need to celebrate the little wins we get in between all of the fighting and challenges we have. I am very proud of the fact that we now have one directive giving us all of the routes we need to go through in order to get our matters on the roll and eventually heard,’ she said.

She said the PAA was one of the role players that attended the High Court Efficiency Enhancement meetings. All stakeholders at the court, including registrars, the deputy judge president, and Legal Aid, participate in these meetings. These meetings are convened once per term and issues impacting the functioning of the court are addressed. During those meetings they talked about the practice directives, especially Practice Directive 1 of 2023 that came into effect on 1 October 2023. She said they presented inputs on the document, which in the end transpired into them being invited, along with other representative organisations, to a meeting at the Offices of the Chief Justice, where they presented them with a track-changed version of the directive. She said they went through every one of those changes in an attempt to change what they felt was unreasonable in the old directive. Following that, a drafting committee was appointed, and she expressed her privilege at being chosen to participate in the committee. Together with Chief Registrar of the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria, Tumelo Ledwaba, they sat for a significant portion of November to finalise the document, she said.

Examining the document, Ms de Witt noted that annexure 1A contained all the e-mail addresses of the people one may need to invite on CaseLines. It also has all the contact details of the court staff. The document is also indexed and searchable, which makes for easy navigation. She also highlighted the Court Online helpdesk on Microsoft Teams. She said assistance is provided within minutes and the individuals are highly efficient. She urged participants to utilise this service if they encounter any challenges or difficulties.

Ms de Witt mentioned that numerous workshops have been held regarding Court Online, and there has been a considerable amount of dissatisfaction expressed by practitioners. At every meeting, it is frequently said the system causes frustration and prevents the progression of matters. She noted the Office of the Chief Justice is working to resolve issues with the program. In the interim, she advised legal practitioners to utilise the helpdesk for assistance.

Vice-Chairperson of the Pretoria Attorneys Association, Tiaan Joubert, facilitated the question-and-answer session at the Conference on Consolidated Practice Directive 1 of 2024.

Ms de Witt noted the directive applies to both Pretoria and Johannesburg divisions, but subsidiary practice directives issued by the deputy judge presidents are still to be complied with. All the form templates have been replaced. Therefore, it is important that once the directive is implemented, the use of old forms be discontinued. Timeframes in this directive supersedes timeframes in the practice manual and in earlier practice directives. Several changes in terms of timeframes have been made, and that needs to be taken note of. All office profile e-mail address remain the same, with the addition of some new ones listed in annexures 1A and 1B. She recommended practitioners print out those pages for convenient reference.

An important principle is all new cases must be initiated on Court Online. She said courts will start enforcing this as they do not want practitioners to use CaseLines to open new matters.

Attendees were encouraged to make use of the Court Online complaints form on the PAA. She said what many firms do is they use Court Online to issue a case number and then proceed to open a CaseLines profile and write all of their matters on that CaseLines profile. ‘You will run into trouble if you do this at some stage and you will have to redo all of your matters on Court Online,’ she said.

A question-and-answer session was then held, which discussed and unpacked the challenges currently experienced by legal practitioners.

Vice-Chairperson of the PAA, Tiaan Joubert, encouraged the attendees to become involved in finding solutions to the various issues that impact the profession. ‘You are here because you want to make a change. If you want to bring about that change, you have to become involved,’ he said.

Mr Joubert noted a second session would be held with members of the judiciary over a weekend. He said they asked that questions from the conference be collected to be put to forward to them.

Members of the Pretoria Attorneys Association Executive Committee, from left: Courtney Nerishe Singh, Nicolette de Witt, Vijayta Rana, Tiaan Joubert, Francois Bouwer and Zelda Modikoe.

Kevin O’Reilly MA (NMU) is a sub-editor at De Rebus.

This article was first published in De Rebus in 2024 (March) DR 9.