Law’s delays in commercial actions in Ampara District, Sri Lanka

Abstract

lt is unfortunate, that a business going through a legal case. Legal cases are initiated against business entities due to inappropriate or mismanagement in the business activities. It is important, that a business institute going through the legal process should get the compensation, immediately without any delays. When law enforced on business organizations, it is difficult to continue the business activities, effectively. Since the law causes are being delayed to resolve, the business institutes going through financial difficulties. In order to eliminate this kind of unfortunate situation in business entities, it’s important to identify and know why there are delays in commercial cases, what are the reasons for those delays, and how can these delays be prevented or overcome. To address these issues, in this study 103 commercial cases pending in the district courts of Ampara district was analyzed carefully. It was found the average law delay in the - analyzed cases were surprising a higher value of 54.7 months. The involvement of the institute in the legal cases significantly delays the case at least by 38.8 months. No relationship was found between the monetary value of the case and the duration of the delay. lt was revealed that inefficient lawyers, issuing delay in the summons, failing to submit relevant documents to the courts, non-availability of new technologies, unnecessary postponements of hearings, lack of strict law to expedite the case to a conclusion, and ignorance of the affected parties are the main and very frequent reasons for the law delays. Lack of judges to the courts, following old law procedures, threatening to witness, lack of strict law to expedite the cases, failing to provide translated documents to the court, and leave for judge are causing more duration of delays in the cases. Based on the facts few solutions are recommended to avoid such delays.