Infrastructural development is needed but fully staffed courts are as well necessary- Katureebe to Museveni

The Chief Justice Bart Katureebe has responded to President Museveni’s speech in which he dampened the Judiciary’s pleas of increasing the number of judges and magistrates to help courts deal with the challenge of case backlog.

Speaking at the judges’ conference early this week, Museveni said there are many other issues that have not been worked upon by government because of lack of enough funds.

“You cannot convince me to stop working on the roads or electricity to pay salary for more judges. I cannot stop. That’s suicidal,” Museveni said on Monday.

However, in response to Museveni’s remarks, the Chief Justice acknowledged the need for infrastructural development but said the judiciary as well needs to be well staffed so as to help deal with case backlog.

“We are not asking government to stop roads and other infrastructural development but we need a fair share for courts to be able to deliver justice,”Katureebe said on Friday during the function to mark the beginning of the new law year at the High Court premises in Kampala.

“We do realize that it may not be possible to recruit all the Judges and other judicial officers we require at the same time, due to budgetary and physical constraints but it can be done in a phased manner.”

According to Museveni apart from a number of infrastructural development projects that have not been finished, many other government agencies are grappling with challenges of under-staffing, adding that the judiciary can for now wait.

However, in response, the Chief Justice proposed that the stuffing of the courts of law can be done in a phased manner starting with at least 10 High Court Judges, 20 Chief Magistrates and 50 grade one magistrates in every financial year.

Katureebe gave an example of the High Court which has a backlog of 60,061 cases which he said  puts the workload per judge at 1,155 cases per year, 100 cases per month and five cases per day which he said is impossible to achieve.

He said currently there are 11 Justices of the Supreme Court, 12 Justices of the Court of Appeal/ Constitutional Court, 52 Judges of the High Court, 44 Chief Magistrates and 226 grade one and grade magistrates.

“These numbers have serious implications on the performance of the Judiciary particularly on adjudication of cases and we thus reiterate our call to government to find the resources so that more Judicial officers are recruited to deliver justice to the people of Uganda.”

The Vice President, Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi, who represented President Museveni at the function said he would forward all the concerns by the Chief Justice to the concerned authorities for redress.