Short answer. It depends which defences were raised. The court resolves the five listed affirmative defences on its own initiative within thirty calendar days from the filing of the answer. For the others it may hold a summary hearing within fifteen calendar days and resolve them within thirty days after that.
What the law says
The court shall motu proprio resolve the above affirmative defenses within thirty calendar days from the filing of the answer.
Rule 8, Section 12 — Affirmative defenses. Read the full provision →
Two tracks, two timetables
The rule splits affirmative defences into two groups and gives each its own clock. The first group is the five grounds the provision lists: that the court has no jurisdiction over the person of the defending party, that venue is improperly laid, that the plaintiff has no legal capacity to sue, that the pleading asserting the claim states no cause of action, and that a condition precedent for filing the claim has not been complied with. These the court resolves motu proprio, on its own initiative, within thirty calendar days from the filing of the answer.
The second track allows a hearing
For the other affirmative defences, the court may conduct a summary hearing within fifteen calendar days from the filing of the answer. Those defences are then resolved within thirty calendar days from the termination of that summary hearing. So the second track can run longer in total, but it gives the parties an opportunity to be heard that the first track does not contemplate. Which track a defence falls into is therefore worth identifying early, because it determines whether you will get a hearing at all.
The periods are counted in calendar days
The rule specifies calendar days rather than working days, so weekends and holidays are included in the count. That is a deliberate choice made across the amended rules to remove arguments about how periods are computed. In practical terms it means thirty calendar days from the filing of the answer arrives sooner than people expect. If you intend to press an affirmative defence, the work has to be done in the answer itself, because there may be no separate opportunity to develop it afterwards.
Everything depends on raising it in the answer
The timetable only helps a defendant who actually invoked the defence. The rule requires that a defendant raise his or her affirmative defenses in the answer, and provides that failure to raise them at the earliest opportunity shall constitute a waiver. So a defence omitted from the answer is generally gone, however strong it might have been. Drafting the answer is where affirmative defences are won or lost; the resolution periods only tell you how quickly you will find out.