The announcement of the National Lockdown by President Cyril
Ramaphosa on 23 March 2020, in an attempt to contain the spread of
COVID-19, had many South African businesses scrambling to amend
their standard practices so as to limit the effect of the National
Lockdown as far as possible.
The South African judiciary was no exception. Since President
Ramaphosa declared a national state of disaster, Judge President
Dunstan Mlambo issued various directives for the courts in order to
comply with the regulations that have been promulgated whilst at
the same time, balancing people's access to justice as far as
possible.
Before the Lockdown
Even before South Africa had been exposed to COVID-19, Judge
President Mlambo issued a practice directive which introduced an
online system called CaseLines Digital Litigation System
("CaseLines"). The purpose of CaseLines
is to move litigation towards being conducted digitally as opposed
to the traditional approach of managing
