Chief Justice Alfonse Chigamoy Owiny-Dollo has said Ugandans are now able to access justice because of the new deployments and transfers within Judiciary.
In a statement issued on Monday, CJ Dollo noted that the Judiciary has in the recent past received a significant addition to its human resource following the appointment of new judicial officers at different levels of the judicial structure.
The new appointees have all been deployed at various courts across the country and the deployments have had a direct impact on the existing judicial officers as a number of them have been transferred across the country.
According to Justice Dollo, the deployments and transfers have had a major impact on case disposal as there has been tremendous improvement in the performance of the courts in terms of the determination of cases, specifically at the Magistrate level.
Highlighting the impact of the most recent appointments and re-deployments, Chief Justice Dollo, observed that the recent appointments have enhanced access to justice by the people. He noted that ever since the Judiciary unveiled its Transformation Agenda and developed the Judiciary Strategic Plan V to facilitate the realization of the said agenda, the new deployments will go a long way in attaining the Institution’s core mission of efficiently and effectively administering justice.
Under this new Agenda, the new officers all appointed in Acting capacities include 14 Deputy Registrars, 8 Assistant Registrars and 20 Chief Magistrates. These appointments bring the number of Deputy Registrars to 43, Assistant Registrars to 19 and Chief Magistrates to 91.
Reflecting on the acute staffing gaps that existed in the Judiciary at the beginning of his term of office, and the significant increase in numbers at the lower bench so far the Hon. Chief Justice stated;
“In 2020 when I assumed the office of Chief Justice, we only had 42 Chief Magistrates. Of the 42, 27 of them were caretaking between 2 to 5 Magisterial areas. For example, the Chief Magistrate of Fort Portal then was caretaking Kasese, Bundibugyo, Ntoroko, Kyenjojo and Kamwenge. One of Soroti was caretaking Kumi, Kaberamaido and Katakwi. Those Chief Magistrates spent more time on the road moving from station to station and could not work effectively,” CJ Dollo said.
“Today, all these Courts have resident Chief Magistrates. Indeed, with the recent appointments we have now deployed Chief Magistrates in Kalangala, Budaka, Bugiri, Butambala, Sembabule, Mitooma, Yumbe and Bundibugyo. As I have always said we shall continue with our transformation journey until justice is accessed at walking distance like drinking water and backlog redefined from 2 years to 1 year.”
Commenting on the same, the Chief Registrar, Her Worship Sarah Langa Siu observed that in addition to expanding the coverage of the Judiciary and taking judicial services closer to the people, the deployments and transfers were also informed by caseload and enhanced efforts to eliminate case backlog.
She revealed that to this end Courts with high caseloads like Nakawa, Mbarara and Mengo Chief Magistrates Courts with a caseload of 3,766; 3,323 and 2,297 cases respectively received additional Chief Magistrates. She further added that the High Court Division Registries like Commercial, Land and Family with a high caseload of 1,689; 2,874 and 2,354 cases were beefed up with additional Deputy and Assistant Registrars to expedite the hearing of interlocutory matters.
“I am equally happy to report that all the 20 High Court Circuits now have Deputy Registrars or Assistant Registrars. This will now allow the Chief Magistrates who have been caretaking these Circuits to focus on their dockets,’’ noted the HW Langa.
“With this human resource boost, we expect to see a substantial rise in case disposal. At the end of the last Financial Year (FY2022/23) the Judiciary disposed of 252,021 cases. As of April 19, there were 165,124 pending cases in all courts and of these, 46,151 were backlogged. This accounts for 28 per cent of the caseload in the courts,” she said.
Among the other priorities of the Judiciary is strengthening the Inspectorate of Courts. Two additional Deputy Registrars have been deployed in the Registry bringing the number to five. The Chief Inspector of Courts is Hon. Justice Stephen Musota. In the Registry are the Registrar, HW Kwizera Amos and five Deputies – HW Gabriel Angualia, HW Helen Ajio, HW Dorothy Ssempala Lwanga, HW Samuel Twakyire and HW Agnes Alum.
The Chief Registrar observed that in terms of implementing the expanded structure of the Judiciary, there is good progress. “Forty-three of the 80 Deputy Registrar positions have been filled representing 53.7 per cent. For Assistant Registrar positions, 19 out of the 40 positions have been filled, representing 47.5 per cent of the approved structure. Currently, we have 91 Chief Magistrates out of the approved 160 which represents 57 per cent of the filled positions,” she said.
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