From our Litigation Department

  In my previous blog post I have explained the standstill to which the Maintenance Court and the Master's Office was brought here in our city by the cyber attack that has disabled the IT systems of the entire Department of Justice and Constitutional Development throughout the country. As you may remember, the Department has long since said that the system is recovering. In spite of this- these two offices were still at a standstill. You may also remember that I have pointed out that no way was yet being sought to assist the public in a manner that did not require the computer network... So-  What has happened since then? On Monday the 8th of November 2021 the Maintenance Court had a visitor. It was Mr Vusumzi Ngamlana from the Public Protector who was sent to find out what was going on at our Maintenance Office and how the public experienced the service. The two applications that I still had waiting for case numbers were accepted for processing soon afterward, but the Mainten...

  If you have not yet heard of the Ransomware attack on the IT systems of our Department of Justice you can read the article that I have found via this link:  https://www.news24.com/news24/SouthAfrica/News/department-of-justice-says-its-recovering-from-cyber-hack-causing-court-case-delays-20211010 If you have lived in this country as long as I have you will know that few things please our public servants the way their working tools do when they break or fall out of working order. For the road-worker a broken spade or pick-axe means a nice quiet day under the tree. For the official at your local motor vehicle licence office a computer system being offline means catching up on gossip with coworkers, reading the newspaper and the occasional interruption by a member of the public that has to be sent away with the all to well-known "the System is Offline". This time around it was the turn of the staff of our local Master's Office and our Maintenance Court here in Mbombela to s...