Prime
Defilement tops Court of Appeal criminal session
On ground. Deputy Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo inspects a guard of honour at the opening of the first Court of Appeal sitting in Masaka on Monday. PHOTO BY ALI MAMBULE
Defilement cases top the list of cases to be handled by the first Court of Appeal circuit sitting at Masaka High Court.
Justice Helen Oburah will lead a panel of two other judges to preside over the month-long session, which opened on Monday.
Other judges are Steven Musota and Fredrick Egonda- Ntende. The team will handle a total of 56 cases from Masaka High Court magisterial area.
A total of 20 defilement convicts, who appealed against their judgments, will have their files revisited by the judges, while murder convicts are 17, rape (6), aggravated robbery (4) and manslaughter (1).
The other eight files consist of civil appeals.
Deputy Chief Justice Alfonse Owinyi-Dollo, who officially opened the session, said convening such courts outside Kampala was intended to give an opportunity to rural communities where offences are committed to witness how they are conducted.
Some of the stakeholders, including religious and political leaders, security officers and residents, who attended the opening session, raised concern over the continued delay of courts to hear and solve cases, thereby resulting in congestion in prisons.
Currently, Uganda has about 55,000 prisoners at the different prison facilities, where 26,016 are on remand and 25,230 are convicts.
A report presented by paralegal officers at Masaka main prison to the deputy Chief Justice indicated that the High Court cases recorded from 2014 to date have not been handled despite the fact that suspects are regularly taken to Masaka Central Prison.
However, Justice Owinyi-Dollo defended the Judiciary, saying the Ministry of Finance is to blame for the case backlog since they have failed to disburse enough funds to facilitate the judges to do the job.
“With the current population of Uganda, which has shot to 40m, we are only 53 judges yet the community we are working in is becoming more and more sophisticated because technology is making them smarter,” Justice Owiny-Dollo said.
