By David Ijjo
Willy Atono, went into the history books as the first ever visually impaired magistrate in Uganda, following his appointment to the judiciary in October last year.
Atono has since been posted to work at Mengo Court where he presides over cases twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday.
In an interview with the Nile post, he recounted his childhood, academic life and journey to the legal world which he forthwith belongs.
Atono was born while blind and was raised by a single mother. He hails from Alebtong district, which was part of Lira.
He says when his mother discovered he was blind, she laboured to find all sorts of treatment however her efforts were unsuccessful.
She said there were instances when her mother was advised to consult traditional doctors but she declined.
The best advice she got was to take him to school with the condition.
Atono attended Ngeta primary school in Lira district, a distance of 50kms from home daily. He was most times dropped off at school by his mother on bicycle.
He recalled the discouragement and frustration experienced by his mother while dropping him to school daily and after an epoch of time decided to place him in boarding where she regularly checking on him.
After primary level, Atono Joined St. Francis School of the Blind in Madera Soroti district for his O’ Level and Iganga Secondary School for his A ‘level.
He later joined Makerere University on government scholarship and studied a Bachelors in Laws. He graduated in 2012.
He then proceeded to Law Development Centre (LDC) p from 2014 to 2015.
When he was at university, he faced several challenges. First the course was demanding and required a lot of reading, something that was difficult for a visually impaired student.
However thankfully, Atono and other visually impaired students were later given braille machine to aid them in their reading and were allocated extra time during examination and text assessments.
Legal Career
Atono became an advocate of the High Court in 2017 and soon after worked as a lawyer for Twontoo Company Advocates.
He does not remember losing any case during his tenure as a lawyer.
He also worked as a legal advocate for the National Union of Disabled Persons in Uganda (NUDIPU).
During his legal practice, Atono said some of his fellow advocates used to under rate him given his impairment but he defeated many of them in court.
Journey to a Grade One Magistrate
Atono says he handled the application process for the grade one magistrate position by himself with no extra help.
“I relied on a software designed in my laptop that has a voice command that guided and gave me instructions to follow when I was typing the application,” he said.
Mr Atono added: “Typing was very easy as I am currently familiar with where the buttons are placed on my laptop. My fingers know their way around the keyboard even when I can’t see.”
JAWS, the computer software programme offers a variety of features including multi-screen support and multilingual speech synthesis and assists visually impaired persons to use a windows computer.
He says learning how to use the software took time.
He also revealed that in preparation for the job he even had to undergo training at Uganda National Association of the Blind, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to transform lives of individuals with vision loss.
In the written interviews, he scored 82% out of 100. He then got ready for the oral interviews.
"They (Judicial Service Commission) were kind enough to get someone who would read for me the interview questions and after giving my responses, the person would upload them onto the computer. The answers were later assessed by the examiners," he said.
After his appointment as magistrate, Atono was deployed to Mengo court. He has since handled 28 cases.
"I would admire people presiding over cases during my adulthood years," the 35-year old magistrate said
"The work of a magistrate gives me some level of satisfaction. I want to work and rise through the ranks to Justice of the Supreme Court."
Atono says while in court, he personally types proceedings. Sometimes he records or uses an assistant to help him conduct specific duties.
"I also make judgments based on someone’s tone of voice. I don’t really need to draw conclusions based on appearances," he said.
In order to access court premises, Atono uses a walking aid.
The spokesperson for the Judiciary Jameson Karemani, said Atono will go into the record books as the first visually impaired judicial officer in Uganda.
Karemani further noted that judicial service commission found him competent for the job despite his visual impairment.
Karemani pledged the judiciary’s support towards Atono’s ambitions of making it to the Supreme Court and encouraged other capable persons with disabilities to be given opportunities in public service.