By Aggrey Baba
For the past few days, advocates in greater Masaka have taken the extraordinary step of putting down their wigs and gowns, not in anger, but in grief, and not in protest, but in principle.
In what legal insiders are calling a moral shutdown, lawyers have walked away from a justice system they say has collapsed from within, saying he silence in court is not meant to disrupt but to awaken.
Masaka’s judiciary is choking. One High Court judge is expected to preside over more than 4,290 cases, an impossible burden by every measure. Even if the judge worked every day of the year and cleared five full hearings a day, it would still take over two decades to bring the docket to zero. That is before counting new cases, urgent applications, or unexpected constitutional changes.
A recent succession law amendment has thrown thousands of already-concluded probate matters into question, resulting into even more files piled onto the desk of one exhausted judge, who now stands as the sole face of justice for an entire region.
The lawyers are not asking for money or benefits, but demanding for the state to admit that the system has failed, and to act accordingly.
Article 142(2) allows the President, acting on the advice of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), to appoint temporary judges (when the state of business in the courts so requires). According to them, if Masaka’s current crisis does not meet that standard, then the provision has lost all meaning.
The lawyers now call for what they term ‘mission-based judges (temporary judicial officers) brought in purely to reduce backlog. No fanfare, no appointments for prestige. Just hands to carry the load, comparing it to calling in health volunteers during an epidemic or mobilising reserves in a security emergency.
The silence in Masaka’s courts is not a refusal to work, but rather a refusal to pretend. The lawyers say they cannot continue participating in a process that offers the illusion of justice when in fact none is being delivered.
What began as a quiet frustration has now grown into a collective statement. Not through press conferences or slogans, but through absence, empty corridors, locked chambers, and unopened files. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
