President Yoweri Museveni has accepted the request by the judiciary to deploy a Chief Magistrate for every district in the county to ease the dispensation of justice while also calling for optimal planning to better utilize the limited national resources available .
Museveni while speaking at the opening of the new law year at the High Court in Kampala, called for a corrupt-free judiciary that has the peoples’ confidence and that ensures quick dispensation of justice.
“I want to see a corrupt-free Judiciary. The people’s confidence in the courts of law is crucial. The government is interested in seeing commercial cases especially those of investors and corruption discharged quickly. I am pleased with the arrangement of automating the courts through the use of technology,” he said.
President Museveni congratulated Chief Justice Alphonse Owiny Dolo and Deputy Chief Justice Richard Butera upon their appointments to the high ranks in the judiciary and expressed his confidence in them noting that they are officers who have got a long and good service record.
The President while responding to Chief Justice Owiny Dollo’s passionate appeal for increased number of judicial officers and better facilitation ,promised to call for a top leadership meeting to rationalize the distribution of natural resources in the different arms of government to ensure equity .
He urged them to ensure that the people of Uganda get the justice they deserve. The President agreed with the judiciary that it would be appropriate to recruit more judicial officers in a phased manner.
The Chief Justice Alphonse Owiny Dolo revealed that currently the service is constrained by a shortage of manpower.
He noted that they only have 43 Chief magistrates serving 146 districts, adding that the magistrates run operations covering five to six districts, a situation he said is not favorable in the service.
He said that the current staffing covers only 47% of the established structure and that the members of the public cannot get full judicial service when there is a shortage of manpower.
Owiny Dollo also announced the setting up of new Land Evictions Practice Directives of 2021 which will make it very difficult for people to be evicted from their land without adequate compensation.
The Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Ephraim Kamuntu commended the President for recognizing the role of the judiciary in transforming Uganda into a modern state and the people of Uganda for exercising their democratic rights.
Later, the President flanked by the Chief Justice, Speaker of Parliament , Rebecca Kadaga and other Justices officiated at the laying of the foundation stone for the construction of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal Buildings in Kampala.
The structures will cost shs 63 billion, according to Uday Kiran, Contract coordinator of Seyani Brothers and Co. Ltd and Parbat Siyani construction Ltd joint venture.
