Judiciary reacts to Bamugemereire's queries on handling land grabbing cases

The judiciary has reacted to queries raised by the Land Inquiry Commission chairperson, Justice Catherine Bamugemereire in regard to how courts of law handle land grabbing cases.

Justice Bamugemereire was speaking at a news conference on Friday when she accused judicial officers of issuing “bogus judgments and orders” in the eviction of bibanja holders.

According to a statement released by the third arm of the State on Monday, the judiciary said it was concerned with the mode of communication that the Court of Appeal judge used in channelling the mentioned points of contention.

According to the Chief Justice Bart Katureebe, they expected the lands commission to communicate such findings of this nature in form of an interim report and not in the press.

"We would have expected the commission to communicate findings of a serious nature in form of an interim report to the President, not a press release," says the CJ Bart Katureebe.

READ: Bamugemereire blasts judges, courts over land grabbing

The judiciary, however, promised to look into the matter and to deal with any officer who will be found to have acted outside the law.

Justice Bamugemereire’s verbal assault on the abuse of courts came four years after Anup Singh Choudry, a retired High Court judge also complained about corruption in the ‘temple of justice’ and accused senior lawyers and judges of conniving with the Attorney General’s office to defraud “impoverished” Ugandans.

The judge called for stern action against a racket of ‘mafias’ in the country’s judicial system saying her team encountered a rising number of orders, rulings, judgments and injunctions entered by judicial officers which have led to eviction of thousands of bibanja holders [bona fide tenants] or giving away protected land like forest reserves and wetlands countrywide.
She recommended an urgent review of all judgments issued by the courts on matters of land.