Supreme Court heard only 4 cases in last quarter - report

The Supreme Court handled only four cases in the past quarter, a Judiciary quarterly performance report has shown.

The poor performance for the months of October, November, and December of 2022 by the highest court in the land was attributed to the lack of office space for the justices to sit and operate from.

This followed a fire outbreak in the chambers of the Chief Justice in the then Kololo-based rented court building in April last year, making the building unsafe for occupancy.

“…Her Worship Sarah Langa Siu, also noted that though the Supreme Court did not hold sessions during the quarter, it was able to dispose of four cases. She was confident that with the resumption of the sitting of the Supreme Court, the court will be able to meet and even surpass its monthly targets by close of Quarter three,” a statement released by the Judiciary’s media team last week reads in part.

Adding: “She (Ms Langa) further observed that with the expected addition of manpower since the process of recruitment of more judicial officers is underway, the backlog will be ably dealt with.”

On May 30 last year, Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo announced the indefinite closure of the Supreme Court building on grounds that it had become unsafe for habitation following a fire outbreak.

He cited water leakages that had led to the collapse of the ceilings and water flooding in the chambers of the judges destroying property and court documents, as some of the grounds for the indefinite closure.

But following pressure from a section of lawyers, the management of the Judiciary late last year decided to temporarily rent a building near the Ministry of Health to house the Supreme Court for a few months.

The decision was reached as they await relocating to their permanent building at the Judiciary headquarters in Kampala, which is still under construction. The Chief Justice had earlier this year said the new building would be ready by April 1.

Despite the poor performance by the Supreme Court, the remaining courts (Court of Appeal, High Court and Magistrates Court), performed well according to the report.

“The courts have maintained improved performance in terms of overall case disposal as reflected in the summary of court case performance report for quarter two, Financial Year 2022/2023. In total, the courts completed 55,613 cases in the month of October, November, and December 2022 across all courts surpassing the quarterly case disposal target by 24 percent,” the statement said.

According to the quarterly performance report, the best-performing division was the Land Division which completed a total of 2,252 cases while Jinja High Court was the best-performing circuit.  At the magisterial level, the courts completed 29,158 cases during the period in review against the set target of 25,000 cases.

Performance

Nakawa Chief Magistrates court topped the list of best-performing Chief Magistrates Courts having completed 1,123 cases followed by Makindye Chief Magistrates Court, which completed 1,071 cases.

The Magistrate Grade One courts registered 15,964 new cases during the quarter and were able to complete 16,621 cases surpassing their quarterly disposal target of 11,250 cases.