By Caroline Kanshabe
Legal experts have expressed mixed reactions to the judiciary’s need for an increment in the justices of the Supreme Court to 20.
To some lawyers, the minimum quorum of 5 justices for one case at the Supreme Court and the minimum of three (3) justices for the Court of Appeal are overwhelmed by the rapid rates at which Ugandans file cases at the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.
However, law Don Dr Ronald Mayambala asserts that Uganda’s syndrome of having big numbers in the arms of government is now escalating to the judiciary after the largest parliament and executive in the region.
The current request by the Judiciary for the government to increase the Justices of the Supreme Court to 20 and 55 for the court of appeal has sparked off mixed reactions from the legal fraternity, with some justifying the need, while others accuse Uganda of dancing to the tune of exaggerated numbers that currently in all arms of government.
Makerere University Law Don Dr. Kakungulu Mayambala questions how Uganda is special from the rest of the neighbouring countries that have supreme court judges that don’t exceed 10 in number and yet with a population higher than Uganda.
However, former Uganda Law Society President Simon Peter Kinobe and Counsel Nicholas Opio justify the need for the requested number of Judges and even more due to Uganda’s unique jurisdiction of the two courts, where a case is not handled by a single judge.
However, Counsel Opio also asserts the benefit to the president especially when it comes to the controversial election appeals whose mandate of jurisdiction is only allocated to the Supreme Court.
According to the 2022/23 Annual Performance Report by the Judiciary, the Supreme Court completed 62 cases and is stuck with a backlog of 695, while the Court of Appeal completed 1099 cases and is stuck with 8,198 cases.
In comparison with other neighbouring countries, Kenya has 7 Supreme Court Judges serving a population of 53.1 million, Tanzania has six Supreme Court Judges serving 63.5 million People, Rwanda has 7 supreme Court Judges serving 13.4 million while Burundi has 9 Supreme Court Judges serving 12.5 million people. Once the increment is granted, Uganda will have the largest benches of the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal in the region serving almost 48 Million People.
In addition, Kinobe also tasks the government to overhaul the law schools because of the contemporary products if it’s to reduce on the future burden of Uganda being a highly litigious country more than the rest in the region.
In spite of the current Judiciary’s plans to establish regional Court of Appeal circuits, one awaits to see the fruits of the current paradigm shift in the establishment of other courts across the country.
Source: Nile post
