Court moves to replace papers with digital forms in a bid to eliminate case backlog

The High Court’s Executions and Bailiffs Division (EBD) has announced massive reforms that will see a turnaround in service delivery and the public perception of the Court.

The reforms, which will range from human resource changes to changing court records from paper form to digital, were announced on Tuesday by the Division head, Justice Duncan Gaswaga.

“Our court users should expect big positive changes in the Executions and Bailiffs Division (EBD) within the next three months,” said Justice Gaswaga.

“I have been receiving complaints of abuse of court process by court clerks, bailiffs, court process servers and other court users. Hiding files, plucking out some papers, swearing of false affidavits and increasing cases of impersonation by members of the public.”

The judge said they have now identified the solution to the problem which he said was partly to blame for the case backlog at the court’s division adding that within three months, there will be a transformation for better.

The announcement comes on the heels of related concerns raised by the Principal Judge, Dr. Yorokamu Bamwine, who is the administrative head of the High Court.

While presiding over a Registrars’ meeting in Kampala on January 17, Dr. Bamwine referred to a complaint from a concerned member of the public who said the Execution and Bailiffs Division was increasingly turning into a Kangaroo court.

Justice Gaswaga, who took over the leadership of the division late 2018, said there is already a process to closely examine individual files, which will lead into a major weed out exercise.

“We have over 7,000 files pending at the Division, but after this weed out exercise, we expect these numbers to drastically drop. Some people have a tendency of filing bogus applications in order to frustrate the successful litigants,” he said.

According to the judiciary, the execution division recently got funding from the Legal Aid Providers Network(LASPNET)  and the International Justice Mission for enhancing reorganization of the Registry and digitization of the court records and processes.

“This division is a very busy and important Court at the tail end of the litigation process, which enables court users to get the fruits of their litigation. We’ll do everything in our means to improve service delivery in the Division,” Gaswaga noted.

The Execution and Bailiffs Division of the High handle all matters relating to the enforcement of court orders, execution of court decisions and to regulate the operations of Court Bailiffs in execution of the Court process in Uganda.