Recruitment of judges should be on merit

According to the Secretary of the Commission, Dr Rose Nassali Lukwago, their earlier move to write to the relevant colleges such as the Law Development Centre (LDC), Law Society, Judiciary, office of DPP, the chambers of the Attorney General for nomination of suitable candidates for the judicial positions did not bear fruit.

What you need to know:

The issue: Judges recruitment
Our view: With the new recruitment policy, citizens and other interested applicants will now feel that the Judiciary is a peoples’ Judiciary unlike the previous policy that was discriminative and left to a privileged few.

The decision by the leadership of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to open up the recruitment process for judges to all Ugandans who meet the required qualifications, is a welcome one.
According to the Secretary of the Commission, Dr Rose Nassali Lukwago, their earlier move to write to the relevant colleges such as the Law Development Centre (LDC), Law Society, Judiciary, office of DPP, the chambers of the Attorney General for nomination of suitable candidates for the judicial positions did not bear fruit. According to them, the recruitment policy, was intended to get morally upright and hardworking judicial officers.

But Dr Lukwago explained that some of the would-be applicants, bitterly complained that some of their bosses victimised them by not nominating them and that they failed to land their dream jobs just because of personal vendetta against them by their bosses.
It is against such background that this time round they opted to open the recruitment process to all Ugandans who have the requisite qualifications to compete. The Commission is currently in the process of recruiting five judges of the High Court and three justices for the Court of Appeal/Constitutional Court.

The Commission’s new move to open the recruitment process to the public is in line with the Constitution that safeguards equality and freedom from discrimination.
Article 21(1) states that all persons are equal before and under the law in all spheres of political, economic, social and cultural life and in every other respect and shall enjoy equal protection of the law. Of course, the background checks made by the Judicial Service Commission will be helpful to weed out applicants who could be having a tainted image.

But one wonders where the Equal Opportunities Commission, a government body that is mandated to eliminate discrimination and inequalities against any individual or group of persons on the basis of gender, age, race, colour, ethnic origin, tribe, birth, creed or religion, health status, social or economic standing, political opinion or disability, and take affirmative action in favour of those groups marginalized was silent on the first recruitment policy that was deemed discriminative.
With the new recruitment policy, citizens and other interested applicants will now feel that the Judiciary is a peoples’ Judiciary unlike the previous policy that was discriminative and left to a privileged few.

The Constitution says judicial power is derived from the people and shall be exercised by the courts established under this Constitution in the name of the people and in conformity with law and with the values, norms and aspirations of the people.