The Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo says Uganda’s Judiciary may not address the ever growing system of case backlog by only using the courts of law.
He made the revelation during the ongoing two-day Africa Chief Justices Summit on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) organized by the Judiciary at Mestil hotel in Kampala.
The summit is being attended by about 300 officials including; several chief justices on the African continent, justices, African judges, ADR practioners, professional associations like Uganda Law Society, East African Law Society, Association of lawyers and government ministeries among others.
The summit aims at finding a quicker and more peaceful way of settling disputes which in the end reduce case backlog and also provide an opportunity to the African judiciaries to interrogate different ADR forms as they speak to different litigants who seek resolutions for the ever growing disputes.
The summit is being held under the theme ‘re-engeenering the administration of justice on the African continent’ with key topics like the role of ADR as an enabler of Africa’s economic growth and development and strategic ADR intervention areas for African judiciaries among others.
While giving his opening remarks, the Chief Justice noted that they have successfully applied ADR on mainly commercial, labour, tax, land and family disputes among others, and that inspite of the courts using ADR mechanisms for the last 20 years, case backlog is still prevalent.
In the financial year 2022/23, Uganda’s case backlog stood at 5592 (30%) cases, with a case staying in the system for over two years and above against 168007 pending cases with 422672 total cases. By the end of June 2023, the total pending cases were 156349 out of 42960 (27.4%) backlog.
“These statistics my lords, Chief Justices ,your excellences show that the Judiciary may not adequately attend to the needs of our people through the formal process alone,” he said.
Owiny-Dollo says the formal justice is ill equiped to attend to the problem of adjudication and that this calls for the need to look onto the traditional justice system that predated the current justice system including the African conflict resolution that looked at creating peace and harmony in society instead of punishing.
