Judiciary to operationalize Luwero high court

Luwero, Uganda |  THE INDEPENDENT |  The Judiciary has finally operationalized Luwero High Court exciting leaders, lawyers and residents.   

Luwero High Court is one of the 20 Courts that were designated in 2016 under the Judicature Statutory Instrument No. 55 of 2016. However, to date, the court had failed to start operating due to the failure by the Judiciary to post a resident judge citing a lack of resources.

The Judiciary has been organizing special criminal sessions where it posts a judge to handle not more 40 cases to reduce the case backlog. Over 200 suspects are currently at Nakasongola Prison waiting for trial judges.

But according to press statement dated 29th January 2021, released by Jamson Karemani Karemera the Public Relations Officer of Judiciary, the Principal Judge Dr Flavian Zeija, has named a six-member team to operationalize the Luwero High Court Circuit to handle cases from Luwero, Nakasongola, and Nakaseke districts.

The Luwero High Court will start operations in July this year. 

Lady Justice Henrietta Wolayo, former head of High Court Execution and Bailiffs Division is named the Chairperson for the Committee, which has been tasked to coordinate the operationalization of the Court and report back to the Principal Judge by June 30.

The Committee members are Pius Bigirimana the Permanent Secretary to the Judiciary, Sarah Langa Siu the Chief Registrar and Eng. Dr Christopher Ebal the Judiciary’s Commissioner for Engineering and Technical Services.  

Others are Samuel Emokor the Registrar High Court who is the Committee Secretary and Andrew Khaukha the Judiciary’s Technical Adviser/Committee’s resource person.

According to Office Instruction No. 1 of 2021 dated January 25, 2021, the Committee’s tasks include identifying suitable court/office premises and a team of Judicial and non-Judicial staff for the Court.

They will also identify Court files for the Luwero Circuit that are currently in the different specialized High Court Divisions in Kampala.

“Dr Zeija said the resources that were previously dedicated to the Executive and Bailiffs Division (EBD) would be used to operationalize the Luwero High Court Circuit, starting July 2021. EBD was wound up following numerous complaints about its operations from the court users.” The statement reads in part.

Erustus Kibirango, an advocate from Wetaka, Kibirango and Company welcomed the operationalization of the court saying many residents were spending extra costs to travel to Kampala to file cases in high courts.

Kibirango says that the operationalization of the court will ease access to justice in time and increase supervision of Chief Magistrate Courts to perform better.

Salim Zimula the Kakabala Parish Councillor in Butuntumula sub-county says that the operationalization of the court is a sigh of relief to suspects who were being kept on remand for years over lack of trial judge of their cases.

Zimula alleges that some relatives of the suspects had resorted to bribing court officials to include their people on the cause list so that their cases can be heard in special criminal sessions.

Other residents say the absence of high court had worsened land conflicts. 

Besides Luwero, five other High Courts which include Hoima, Iganga, Moroto, Rukungiri, and Tororo are non-operational.  

The The 14 operational High Court Circuits are; Arua, Fort Portal, Gulu, Jinja, Kabale, Lira, Masaka, Masindi, Mbarara, Mbale, Mpigi, Mubende, Mukono, and Soroti.

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