Justice Delayed Has Become Justice Denied
There is an old saying in Sri Lanka: if you go to court, you may win the case, but you will lose half your life.
For many Sri Lankans, that saying feels painfully accurate. A land dispute can take twenty years. A financial claim can drag on for decades. A criminal case can move from one court to another, from one judge to another, from one file to another, until witnesses disappear, litigants die and the original dispute is almost forgotten.
The result is that justice becomes not a right, but a test of endurance.
Sri Lanka’s judicial system is now carrying more than 1.1 million pending cases across different courts. District Courts alone account for more than 262,000 cases, while thousands more are stuck in the High Courts, Magistrates’ Courts and appellate system.
The reasons are not difficult to identify. There are too few judges, too few court staff, too many adjournments and too much paperwork. Sri Lanka has only around 20 judges per one million people, compared to 40 to 60 in many other countries. Some judges are handling 3,000 to 4,000 cases each, while certain courts are dealing with several thousand pending matters at a time.
But the problem goes beyond a shortage of judges.
The deeper dysfunction lies in the administrative culture of the court system itself. Files disappear. Hearings are postponed without clear reason. Cases move endlessly between lower courts, higher courts and appellate courts. Lawyers seek adjournments. Court clerks and registrars often become the gatekeepers of the entire process. In some instances, litigants complain that administrative staff appear to wield more practical power than the judges themselves.
Many Sri Lankans also believe corruption plays a role. There are persistent complaints of missing files, preferential treatment, unexplained delays and pressure for unofficial payments. Public confidence weakens when a litigant sees a simple boundary dispute take longer than a major infrastructure project.
One recent example discussed publicly involved a litigant claiming that an entire file had disappeared from a Magistrate’s Court after a warrant had already been issued. While such incidents may not be universal, they reinforce the public perception that poor record-keeping and weak accountability continue to undermine the justice system.
The NPP government has correctly identified judicial digitalisation as a priority. There are now plans for a national e-Court system, electronic filing, online case management and a judicial data network linking courts across the country. The Supreme Court has already held its first paperless hearing, and electronic filing is now being used for some cases.
The government has also allocated Rs. 150 million to expand the e-Court project and improve digital case management across the judicial system.
That is welcome. But digitisation alone will not solve the backlog.
Sri Lanka also needs strict case-management deadlines. A simple civil dispute should not be allowed to continue for fifteen years. Land cases should have mandatory timelines. Commercial disputes should be resolved within a fixed period. Judges should be required to issue written decisions within a defined number of months after hearings conclude.
The judiciary also needs more judges, more support staff and more specialised courts. The government is planning to establish seven new courts, but even that may not be enough if vacancies remain unfilled. There are still more than 4,000 vacancies in the wider justice sector, including shortages of legal officers and administrative staff.
There should also be a public performance system. Courts should publish how many cases they resolve each month, how long judgments take and how many cases remain pending. Judges and administrators should be measured against targets. Taxpayers are entitled to know whether the justice system is functioning efficiently.
Sri Lanka has already shown that when there is pressure and political will, backlogs can be reduced. Courts recently managed to clear decades-old accumulations of case productions and generated nearly Rs. 953 million through the disposal of long-abandoned seized items.
That same urgency must now be applied to the cases themselves.
The public does not expect miracles. But it does expect that a court case filed today will not become a burden carried by the next generation.