For the court system to be effective in minimising costs and delay, the importance of the following matters must be recognised, as they are in many overseas jurisdictions. First, it has to be appreciated that court time is a public resource and as with all public resources it is limited. The courts have a responsibility to the community to ensure that court time is fairly and efficiently allocated and used. And the effective use of court time will result in shorter hearings and the saving of costs for the parties. It must therefore be appreciated that to ensure that court time is well used, the judges have to do considerable preparatory work before the actual hearing.
Court sitting time is therefore only a fraction of their working time.
Secondly, court procedures must be appropriate to minimise costs and delay. They should be readily understandable and applied. The scope for tactical abuse must be minimised. The parties should know each other's case as soon as practicable. This would encourage them to consider the early resolution of their disputes through compromise.