Justice delayed, grief denied: When the courts fail the bereaved

Mail & Guardian

a day ago

When my father died in September 2023, our family's grief was hijacked first by bureaucracy, then by betrayal, and now by the court system.
The first part of this story exposed how the Master's Office in Mahikeng
We are now nearly a year into our pursuit of justice. Our first court appearance was in March 2024, after we secured the services of a handwriting expert to analyse the mysterious will. The expert's report confirmed what we feared: the signature didn't match my father's.
We thought we were finally on a path toward truth. We were wrong.
On that first appearance, the case was postponed. The other party, comprising several of my late father's siblings, wanted time to find their own handwriting expert. Understandable, perhaps. But what followed would be laughable if it weren't so painful.
The matter was then postponed to September 2024, almost six months later. The date, painfully ironic, falls at about the time of my father's death.
Their report arrived. It didn't outright contradict ours, but tried to soften the blow, citing my father's neurological condition to explain the discrepancies in his signature. They presented medical documents as proof.
Our legal team requested another postponement, this time to February 2025. Why? Because both reports needed to be reviewed and discussed. No progress. No closure. Just waiting.
Then came the real gut punch. In early 2025, the case was postponed again because the matter wasn't 'trial-ready'. Of the six siblings contesting the will, only one had been served. The others? The court's sheriff couldn't find them.
So we grieving family members became private investigators. We searched for addresses. We made phone calls. We drove to their homes.
In the end, we managed to track down most of them, but May 2025 came, and the case still couldn't be heard. A new date must now be requested. And the process of serving all six must be restarted. Again.
At this point, we are not just fighting for an estate. We are fighting for the right to be heard.
Ours is not an anomaly. It is a reflection of the civil court system, a system riddled with delays and inefficiencies.
In 2021, the then justice minister, Ronald Lamola, said in parliament that the country faces huge court backlogs, particularly in civil matters, citing staff shortages, ageing infrastructure and high caseloads. But for families like mine, those explanations offer no comfort.
In our case, justice has been postponed five times. Not because of complex legal arguments. Not because of lack of evidence.
Section 34 of the Constitution promises that 'everyone has the right to have any dispute … decided in a fair public hearing before a court'. But when cases are delayed indefinitely sometimes for years that right becomes theoretical.
In a country where estate fraud is rising and wills can apparently materialise months after burial, these systemic failures embolden the very people who should be investigated.
We have the reports. We have witnesses. We have intent. But the court has yet to even hear our case.
We don't talk enough about what this does to people.
Every court date is a trigger. Every postponement reopens the wound. You prepare yourself emotionally, mentally, financially. You gather paperwork. You re-live your loss. And then someone says, 'Come back next year.'
This is not just about money. It's about dignity. It's about the truth. And it's about what kind of country we want to live in: one where the dead are protected and honoured, or one where silence is bought with time and incompetence.
The delays in our case aren't just emotional, they're profitable.
While we've endured repeated postponements, judges and lawyers continue to draw full salaries every day the case drags on. Consider the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial: after three long years marred by delays and adjournments, Legal Aid SA said it had already spent R6.5 million on legal fees alone. Civil courts aren't immune.
The burden falls on families. In our case, one uncle threatened to attach my mother's R900 000 home to cover R64 000 in legal fees, which was the one time we saw the sheriff work.This was a scare tactic but we refused to back down. Through bribes, witch-doctors, logistical snags and endless formalities, we are determined: justice may be delayed, but it will not be denied.
I am writing this because the system has failed us. But silence would fail us more. We must document this for every South African who has had to sit in silence while justice crawled.
Because the real death isn't the one we bury, it's the one the system lets happen slowly, year after year, in courtrooms that never open.
Orateng Lepodise is a writer and communications specialist. She is documenting her personal experience.