Page 30 - The Circle of Life

accused which may be an attorney or an advocate or both. You will also have

police detectives and victims of crime.

In Private Law that terminology is replaced with Plaintiff versus the Defendant or

Applicant versus Respondent in applications or notices of motion. The fastest
process of obtaining relief for your client is called application (motion) procedure

and the best known example would be an interdict or injunction in America.
Consequently the person asking the relief is known as the Applicant and the

opposing one the Respondent.

Occasionally, in very specific cases, the Respondent doesn't even know about
the application until it the order against him is granted. This is called ex-parte

applications but in fairness since the law is neutral the Respondent will have his
day in court to argue why the judgment should not be made permanent against

him. Most importantly here is that it is almost always without human witnesses
and judged only on the papers in front of the court. During divorce proceedings

we use this often to gain temporally maintenance under Rule 43 which we will
look at in some detail. Rule 43 is not an ex-parte application by the way. The

other side are allowed time to respond.

The longer process in Private Law is via summons where the Plaintiff sues the

Defendant for whatever relief he needs. This will be the classic divorce or
damages based on delict as you see on television with witnesses. It is a much

longer process and in you will seldomly be in court within 3 to 5 years from date

of summons in the High Courts if defended. Why? I say law is not rocket science
but in practise it becomes exceedingly complicated and the process bend
backwards to be fair to everyone. Thus it takes time and the courts exceptionally

busy. But have no doubt. The wheels of justice are slow but it keeps on moving.

Even in Africa.

All change of status of a person is dealt by the High Court which includes things

like divorce and being declared insane or dead.

The High Courts take longer but is much more expensive which is a nice tactic
for your soon to be ex or so they wrongly believe. Wrongly because nothing
prevents you to act on your own behalf and thus the money comes from his

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