Justice delayed, it is often said, is justice denied. If that is true, many court users in Hong Kong are being failed by the system.

Those involved in criminal cases at the Court of First Instance must wait 358 days on average for the hearing, the judiciary revealed last week. The figure for the District Court is 354 days, way above the court’s 100-day target. This is a cause of concern.

The glacial process has prompted the Law Society to call for drastic measures. Justin Yuen Hoi-ying, chairman of the body’s standing committee on standards and development, urged the judiciary to consider extending court hours. He suggested simple and procedural matters might be heard in the evenings or on Sundays.

Yuen also pointed out that the average waiting times do not tell the full story. Targets for civil cases have generally been met, but the lawyer said a Law Society member had waited more than a year for a simple commercial case to be scheduled, enduring a financial burden as a result.

This is not a new problem. One of the concerns leading to the appointment of the first Judiciary Administrator in 1994 was long waiting times for cases. Practices were changed, targets set and technology deployed. Some progress was made, but the issue has persisted.

The judiciary has weathered a perfect storm in recent years. Courts had to close at times during the Covid-19 pandemic. They were flooded with more than 2,000 cases from anti-government protests in 2019. Trials arising from a sweeping new national security law imposed in 2020 added to the burden.

This has inevitably led to a heavy workload. The total number of cases in 2025 was 537,000, with the courts recording their highest level for five years.

The High Court continues to tackle a large number of non-refoulement claims brought by people seeking to avoid being returned to a country where they say they face persecution or torture. The backlog, although significantly reduced, remained at almost 5,700 at the end of July.

Meanwhile, a surge in fraud and money-laundering cases has hit the District Court. There were 840 of these in 2025, making up a staggering 40 per cent of all the court’s criminal cases.

The judiciary is putting a brave face on this challenging situation. Most targets have generally been met, it says, and the position is expected to gradually improve now that 97 per cent of the protest cases and 89 per cent of national security cases have been heard. A scheme introduced last year to allow private lawyers to sit as part-time judges in non-refoulement cases is eating into the backlog.

The recruitment of judges has been stepped up, new courtrooms are under construction and technology is being embraced. These are all necessary measures, but they will take time to have an impact. A drive to encourage litigants to use mediation, rather than litigation, is also bearing fruit, notably in the small claims and lands tribunals.

But court users continue to experience the burden of long delays, adding to the cost and stress of legal proceedings. Some litigants and crime victims might even give up and withdraw their cases.

Hong Kong’s delays are mostly a result of its own unique circumstances, but the city is not alone in facing the problem of slow justice. Britain’s criminal justice system has been described as being on the verge of collapse, with some victims of crime waiting years for a trial.

Last month, the government ditched a controversial plan to tackle the problem by dispensing with juries in cases carrying prison terms of up to three years. It is still planning to remove the right to jury trial for “either way” offences – such as burglary, theft and assault – intending the cases to be heard by magistrates instead, but the magistrates already face a record caseload.

The idea that justice should not be delayed dates back at least to the Magna Carta, agreed to by the king of England in 1215. Article 87 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law requires suspects to be tried “without delay”, but the principle is easier to assert than to achieve.

Hong Kong has to push ahead on all fronts with efforts to speed up the process without compromising quality. Sufficient resources must be provided to the hard-pressed judiciary. Filling the vacancies for judges at the High Court and District Court would be a good start.

There is a need for a sense of urgency. The city’s drive to become a leading international centre for legal services depends on justice neither being denied nor delayed.