Deputy Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Richard Buteera, and also Chairperson of the Case Backlog Committee
Judges of the High Court have come up with 10 key resolutions and recommendations that will improve case management at their stations. The resolutions were arrived at during the Case Backlog Monitoring Committee Retreat for heads of Divisions and Circuits at the Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort on Friday, March 25, 2022.
The Deputy Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Richard Buteera, and also Chairperson of the Case Backlog Committee, said that the meeting had been organized to share the extent of compliance with resolutions from previous retreats and to "also share challenges that may have affected the implementation of these resolutions, with a view of promoting efficiency and effectiveness in case load management," he said.
He added that the overall objective of the retreat is to attain effective and efficient case disposal. "We need to devise workable means of avoiding delayed trials. Our Constitutional mandated is to deliver Justice, timely and expeditiously" he said.
In his remarks, the Principal Judge, Hon. Justice Dr Flavian Zeija, informed the participants that the Retreat was the "beginning of quarterly meetings that I will be conducting with the Heads and Deputy Heads of divisions and circuits intended at assessing the quarterly performance of each division and circuit."
He encouraged the other Courts to consider rolling out daily hearings as is the case with the Criminal Division. Regarding training on the new rules of procedure, the Principal Judge reassured the participants that trainings would commence in April with support from the International Development Law Organization.
The PJ called for plea bargaining at least 50% of criminal matters. "Your Lordships, if we could target Plea Bargaining for at least 50% of our cases, it will go a long way in addressing the inordinate delays in trials, and also promote efficiency and effectiveness in our judicial system," he said.
This proposal was seconded by Hon. Justice Mike Chibita who called for a robust advocacy policy on Plea Bargaining. "My Lords, for the target (50% criminal cases) to be met,My Lord the Principal Judge and Chairperson of the Plea Bargaining Committee,we need a robust advocacy campaign driven by heads of circuits and the Criminal Division with the Principal Judge giving oversight guidance," he said.
He noted that the proposal was to start trainings on new procedures in the Centre and then cascade into the different High Court circuits.
The Judges agreed to consolidate and foster the implementation of resolutions of retreats of the Divisions and Circuits to inform presentation at the Annual Judges' Conference.This will include supporting the rollout of innovations such as Plea Bargaining,Mediation, Small Claims, and adoption of Daily Hearing of criminal cases. They also called for best practices such as combining interlocutory applications with main suits to reduce the proliferation of cases in the system, change of attitude, and strengthen the supervisory role of Judges. Each Court develops a costed case clearance plan with defined time schedules. This shall be integrated into a Judiciary wide case clearance plan for the year.
It was recommended that the development and dissemination of a backlog/caseload reporting template should be fast tracked which includes current status, backlog/caseload clearance strategies; work plan among others. They called for effective utilization of existing space such as furnishing the Sixth floor of the Land Division at Twed Towers and importance of effective long-term planning to house Divisions/Circuits including extra chambers space for likely expanded numbers of judicial officers.
Among the strategies and best practices, the meeting made was the periodic/regular case-file management by Divisions/Circuits. This included supervising systems administrators and Judges to take an interest in the daily entry of data.Structured and intentional cause-listing and case-management by Divisions/Circuits. They called for intentional cause-listing of 70% backlog,30% new matters. They also stressed the need to re-engineer Mediation to include involvement of retired Judges to support the initiative, adaption of evaluative mediation, room-space, and facilities).
The meeting agreed that there was a need for a caseload and workload monitoring mechanism at Divisions and Circuits. These included setting Division/Circuits goals and individual judges’ targets as well as regular meetings as a tool to enhance caseload disposal.
It was agreed that there was a need to allocate Judges' funds for carrying out locus visits. As a means of fostering stakeholder management by the Courts, Divisions/Circuits,courts should hold court users' committees, bar-bench meetings, and Advocates WhatsApp groups to engage and ease case-management. They called for training on case-management procedures on the 2019 civil procedural rules to be extended to Judiciary registry staff and advocates.
The meeting was attended by a cross section of Judges from divisions and circuits, members from the Case Backlog Reduction Committee and Registrars.
Posted 25th, March 2022
