CJ Dollo decries poor funding to judiciary
Uganda's Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny Dollo. PHOTO/RONALD KABANZA
What you need to know:
- “Every judge who fails to handle a case within a year will have to make a report explaining why and will face disciplinary action,” CJ Dollo warned.
The Chief Justice (CJ) Alfonse Owiny Dollo has asked government to increasing funding to thr Judiciary saying that “poor funding has failed them on timely delivery of justice to Ugandans.””
“We find a lot of hardships in giving timely justice to Ugandans. When there are limited resources, manpower also becomes limited thus a disservice to the community,” CJ Dollo said.
The FY2022/23 budgetary allocation for Uganda’s judiciary was doubled to at least Shs381.6billion, by far less than the two other arms of government.
“If I am given half of parliament’s budget, then judges and courts would be everywhere in the country. After we fought and our budget was doubled, we are now posting judges and constructing courts at constituency level,” CJ Dollo observed.
Uganda has about 700 judges that serve the nation’s more than 44million people.
And for CJ Dollo, the allocation to his Organ is a drop in an ocean considering Uganda’s fast increasing population amid a high cost of living.
Meanwhile, he challenged all citizens to fight corruption that has long-plagued the Judiciary.
”It’s true there are some corrupt officers in the Judiciary but we get them from your communities. We are working day and night to remove them from the system,” he told Rukungiri and Kanungu District leaders during his two-day Kigezi Sub- region tour.
Uganda is also moving to establish an appeal court in Mbarara City “to work on the people of Ankole and Kigezi Sub-region respectively in a bid to reduce on the thousands of case backlog the Judiciary is faced with.
“Every judge who fails to handle a case within a year will have to make a report explaining why and will face disciplinary action,” CJ Dollo warned at Rukungiri magistrate court on July 18.
