The Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo has said that about seven trillion shillings is locked up in undissolved disputes before the Commercial Division of the High Court.
Owiny-Dollo revealed this while delivering the Annual Performance Report of the Judiciary at the High Court in Kampala on Wednesday.
He said the monies are tied up due to a number of pending cases in that court which have now accumulated and cannot easily be concluded within the shortest period of time by the current number of eight Judges who are deployed in that court.
The report is required under Section 39 of the newly enacted law, the Administration of the Judiciary Act, 2020 and the Chief Justice is mandated to distribute copies of the annual performance report to the President and the Speaker of Parliament every after end of a financial year.
However, Owiny-Dollo indicates that there are no big results that have been achieved due to the heavy workload and he equates it to emptying a big lake like Victoria using a small basin of bathing, yet nearby rivers continue flowing into it. According to Owiny-Dollo, if he had 15 Judges there, he is optimistic that the workload in that court although he didn’t reveal how big it is in numbers, would be concluded within 18 months.
He further noted that a similar problem is in the land division of not only tying the monies but also the injunctions issued in certain cases whose subject value is very high in terms of money. As such, he indicated that if those two divisions are strengthened and given more Judicial officers, the Judiciary will have made an enormous contribution to the country knowing that monies worth big investment have been returned to the economy.
According to the report, in the Financial Year 2021/2022, courts disposed of a combined total of 205,967 cases out of a total caseload of 373,974. This, the report shows is a great improvement compared to the Financial Year 2020/2021 where 156,875 cases out of the caseload of 317,929 were disposed of.
The report also shows that there has been an increase of Grade One Magistrates from 186 to 301 Magistrates, operationalization of Magistrate Grade One Courts of Kyotera, Kyanika, Kole, Lamwo, Kyazanga, Kalungu, Amuria, Atanga, Kalongo, Kangulumira, Namugalrwe, Kibito and Nyarushanje.
The report also shows that there has been automation of courts with the newly launched technology of filing cases electronically, the Electronic Court Case management system-ECCMIS, conclusion of more than 160 election disputes expeditiously, recovering of more than 14 billion shillings through Small Claims Procedure and completing 1,851 cases through mediation in different courts.
According to the report, the Judiciary has also been able to construct its own courts including the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal buildings which are in advanced stages of completion and are expected to be finished by December 2022.
The Chief Justice has now reechoed his appeal of having more funds so as to increase on the staffing gaps and improve access to justice and pending projects of the Judiciary such that people in Uganda do not have to travel long distances to seek for justice.
In his speech at the same event, the Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Nobert Mao applauded the judiciary saying that it has been able to make into good use of the resources given to them and managed to construct the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal in a short time.
Mao said that these days he loves peace but he would have mentioned other government agencies that were given funds but have not done anything for many years adding that the Judiciary’s transformation has therefore become a good example to learn from.
The Judiciary has been able to achieve all it did in the past financial year with the budget of 376 billion shillings courtesy of the government of Uganda.
