Owiny-Dollo: "Inadequate funding hampering access to justice"

The Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny Dollo has said that access to justice is still a challenge to many Ugandans because of workforce gaps and inadequate funding, which impedes output and case backlog.

Owiny Dollo made the remarks while presiding over the third leadership dialogue, organised by the Hague Institute for Innovations of Law (HiiL) and Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS), at Mestil Hotel in Kampala.

The goal of the half-day dialogue was to explore ways of how to strengthen people-centred justice in Uganda.

Owiny-Dollo noted that inadequate transport to facilitate locus visits and staff mobility is also another challenge.

He said that the major objective of the dialogue was to come to a shared goal inspired by four transformational ideas; developing a justice data hub that continuously collects data about the needs and experiences of justice users, strengthening local courts, integrating IT systems to support LC courts and supporting traditional ways of resolving disputes.

Making his remarks via Zoom technology, the HiiL chief executive officer, Sam Muller, said that his organisation was pioneering a new way of creating a people-centred justice system through partnerships.

“A justice system that is built around the needs and experiences of people, not of institutions, is our goal,” he stated.

He explained that a people-centred justice system resolves justice problems, prevents injustices from occurring, and uses formal and informal justice systems to create opportunities for people to participate fully in their economies and societies.

He said with funding from SIDA, HiiL started running innovation labs to develop innovative solutions that could scale and run based on sustainable funding models.