Deputy Registrar, HW Festo Nsenga
The Criminal Division has reported a great performance of the newly introduced daily hearing scheme. This was disclosed on Monday April 4, 2022 during the second Court's Case Clearance Teams' meeting. The meet was held to track their performance, review activities that have been happening to this point, identify challenges, and lay strategies on how best to make the concept successful.
Early this year, the Criminal Division, together with stakeholders in the criminal justice system, with support from the International Development Law Organization resolved to commence with the daily hearings. This pilot programme is set to run for 24 months.
In his remarks, the Head of Division, Hon. Justice Michael Elubu, informed members that almost all Judicial Officers and their teams were able to start hearings on 1st February and to date, a total of 285 cases have been completed; 143 were completed in February and 142 for March.
These are cases that would have been ideally handled in seven sessions.
He informed participants that the Division has developed a supervision mechanism where each Judicial Officer has been assigned at least two courts. All matters from respective Courts under its Criminal jurisdiction will be forwarded to the respective Judges to handle,supervise their performance and handle any other administrative concerns raised.
Hon. Justice Elubu highlighted some of the challenges faced since the Programme commenced key being inadequate funds. "One of the biggest challenges we have faced is inadequate funds. The money we have been operating on the previous quarter to implement daily hearing mechanism was budgeted for last year when the concept had not taken shape.During this time, funding was done by way of sessions of 40 cases per month yet day-to-day hearings handle more than 100 cases a month", he said.
He however revealed that a memorandum of understanding was about to be reached between the Judiciary and International Development Law organization as far as funding is concerned. In this regard, the Division has set up a finance committee to help in streamlining the management and handling of funds for the daily hearings.
The Deputy Head of Division, Hon. Justice Tadeo Asiimwe appreciated the teamwork shown by the teams created. He however stressed the need to streamline communication, cooperation and avoid excuses for non-attendance of Court.
During the meeting, it was resolved that cause lists for the coming month be ready by the 15th of the current month as opposed to the previously agreed date of the 25th. This will give the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions time to allocate the files as well as prisons officers and lawyers to prepare in time. There is also a need to streamline the timely service of production warrants, identify enough cases from which to choose meritorious cases, prisons to produce a few plea bargain cases per day, WhatsApp groups for specific teams to be set up, among others.
Prisons authorities were called upon to continue sensitizing inmates about plea bargains as the Division works out how to visit prisons and carry on the sensitization exercise.
Members were also notified that the Division is expected to go live on ECCMIS in less than a month. Hence, they were urged to be ready, be part of it and render necessary support.
Hon. Justice Isaac Muwata, theDeputy Registrar, HW Festo Nsenga, Assistant Registrar, HW Didas Muhumuza,advocates, state attorneys from the ODPP, representatives from police and Prisons, and support staff were present.
Posted 4th, April 2022
