Judiciary will implement whatever parliament passes on bail – Justice Buteera 

The Deputy Chief Justice, Richard Buteera, has noted that the judiciary is at the receiving end and will implement laws passed by parliament including the recent public debate on bail.

“President indicated that he will have a country-wide consultation among leaders, stakeholders, opinion leaders, and the general public before parliament debates about the bail, and for us (Judiciary) we shall implement what parliament will pass,” he said.

Justice Buteera made the remarks during his visit to Masaka High Court on Wednesday where he had a closed-door meeting with officers of the court before addressing journalists.

He said the meeting was aimed at monitoring case backlogs that are caused by delays of trials in police systems in order to expedite the processes and reduce congestion in prisons and other detention centers.

“We have discussed strategies to dispose of cases both civil and criminal and among others is to increase the number of judicial officers and funding to ease the process,” Justice Buteera said.

He said the judiciary will recruit more 14 judges this financial year and in the next three years the judges will be increased from 56 to 150 to be distributed in the whole country to speed up the piling cases in courts  

“We aim at having chief magistrates at every district unlike the current magisterial areas and grade one magistrate at every county. This will help us in completing the cases in a period of one year hence elimination of delayed trial,” he explained.

The Masaka chief magistrate, Mr Charles Yeteise, noted that the move to increase judicial officers will yield good fruits for both judiciary and the public.

“The judicial officers are having a heavy load on their shoulders, an increase in the number of judicial officers will speed up the court process and the public will be saved from delayed trial,” he said.