Parliament has approved an additional Shs31.4bn for the Judiciary to among others carter for recruitment of judicial officers and procurement of vehicles. This followed the adoption of a report on the judiciary Policy statement by the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee during plenary chaired by the Deputy Speaker, Jacob Oulanyah.
The report was tabled by the Committee Chairperson and West Budama South MP, Jacob Oboth. The judiciary is to receive Shs151.5bn in the FY2019/2020 compared to the Shs127.8bn allocated this Financial Year.
The additional Shs20bn was provided under the development budget to cater for the construction of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal premises. An additional Shs1.9bn was also provided to cater for wage shortfalls experienced in the FY2018/ 2019. According to the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, the additional funding doesn’t cater for different strategic areas in the judiciary.
‘’The Judiciary is faced with man power challenges with staffing levels at 55%. This has put a lot of workload and caseload on the existing man power. Judiciary has planned a recruitment of 100 judicial officers. They include 20 Chief magistrates, 49 Magistrate Grade one and 31 for appellant court- High Court in order to reduce case backlogs. However, these funds are not provided in the budget estimates. In this regard Sh9bn is required to recruit 100 judicial officers over the medium term,’’ reads part of the approved Committee report.
Oboth recommended that the Judiciary wage Bill be adjusted by providing an additional Shs4.42bn in the FY2019/2020 to enable recruitment of 50 judicial officers in an effort to reduce case backlog.
He however, noted that 50% of the additional staff should be High court judges. Also approved is an additional Shs10bn out of the required Shs20bn to help the Judiciary to clear part of an estimated at 40,251 case backlog.
‘’This is high and hence the need for resources to clear cases that are 3 years and older from the system through the support to sessions and capacity building,’’ reads the committee report.
The Judiciary is to also get an additional Shs2bn to formalize Local Council courts as one of the measures to address the case backlog.
This follows the election of new local council officials and on-going re-establishment of local council courts. Parliament also approved an additional Shs10bn out of the required Shs62.1bn for the Judiciary to procure vehicles to improve access to justice especially for land cases.
Oboth informed parliament that the Judiciary is challenged in the area of land adjudication characterized by delays, failure to visit the locus, case mismanagement and integrity concerns. He said the institution is expected to fast track land cases where government has an interest, which raises capacity issues. The Judiciary is also to receive another Shs5bn to support innovation in case management. For comments, call or text us on 0752510225.
