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Masaka, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The judiciary is considering co-opting retired civil servants and religious leaders to serve as mediators in disputes, to help courts quickly clear the heavy case backlogs.
Justice Richard Buteera, the outgoing Deputy Chief Justice indicates as part of their broader transformation agenda; aimed at improving access to justice, the Judiciary found it proper to deepen the use of the Alternative Dispute Resolution-ADR mechanism that saves on time and financial resources wasted in the typical long litigation processes.
Speaking at the opening of the special Court of Appeal Criminal session in Masaka, Justice Buteera noted the Judiciary has adopted the idea of training retired civil servants and religious leaders, to equip them will skills to arbitrate, mediate and reconcile in different conflicts.
After undergoing thorough training in effective negotiation skills, he says the coopted mediators, will be deployed at the various courts to complement judicial officers who are already doing the work.
Justice Buteera says that out of their experience, they have established that the ADR mechanisms of mediation in civil cases and plea-bargain in criminal matters; are capable of simplifying the delivery of justice and offloading the judiciary of heavy burden on backlogs.
Justice Buteera highlighted that last year 2024, through the ADR mechanism, only ten courts in the different parts of the country including the Court of Appeal managed to settle a total of 237 civil cases in a record time of one week.
He noted that despite the ongoing efforts for further decentralization of the Court of Appeal sessions in the different parts of the country, the judicial officers should encourage the litigants to embrace alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, due to is already proven outweighing benefits.
Alexander Lule, the Chairperson of the Masaka Lawyers Association expressed a need for the Judiciary to increase the speed at which cases that go to the Court of Appeal are determined.
He observes that the chronic delays in the determination of Court of Appeal matters cause systematic delays in the delivery of justice, arguing that many currently deliberately abusing the structural gaps to suppress judgments of the High Court.
John Baptist Kawanga, one of the senior lawyers practising in Masaka also appealed to the Judiciary to consider the Masaka sub-region for permanent structures of the Court of Appeal, the save their clients with civil matters the burden of travelling to Kampala for hearings.
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