Set targets for judicial officers to quicken expedition of cases, says law society

While reacting to the Judiciary's 2022-23 annual performance report presented by the Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny Dollo, the president of the Uganda Law Society Bernard Oundo has tasked the Judiciary to define a clear marked line of the time that a judicial officer should spend on a case.

"This will practically solve case backlog without blames and excuses,"Oundo said.

According to the Chief Justice, judicial officers tried have been required to expedite a case in not more than three weeks leaving other factors constant.

"That's why we have been able to realize a 4.2% reduction on the over 50,000 case backlog that we had in 2022," said the Chief Justice.

The ULS president expressed dissatisfaction about the little attention that courts have rendered to human rights related cases.

"I would like to see for instance the Supreme Court prioritising the cases related to human rights because that's the current pertinent issue affecting people," said Oundo in a post launch media interaction.

According to the judiciary 2022-23 annual performance report, a total of 266323 were disposed off but the sector still grapples with a high Judicial officer ratio of one judicial officer to 70000 people though the recruitment of new judicial officers made it a slight reduction from 1 officer to 81,000 people in 2022.