The Hon. Principal Judge, Hon. Justice Dr. Bamwine (above second Right standing , Hon. Justice Batema (standing right below) and Mugisa (with a prisons officer) after getting his sentence
FORT PORTAL: At\r\nleast 200 accused persons from Katojo Prison in Fort Portal are to benefit from\r\nPlea Bargaining initiative.
Unlike the previous launches, this\r\nAccess to Justice Initiative was launched on August 24, 2015 was taken directly\r\nto the accused persons inside a prison.
The Principal Judge, Hon. Dr. Justice\r\nYorokamu Bamwine, who chairs the Plea Bargaining Task Force led a team of key\r\nmembers of the Criminal Justice System from Kampala to the launch in Fort\r\nPortal.
Said Hon. Justice Dr Bamwine: "In\r\nthe past, focus has been on District Coordination Committees (comprised\r\nrepresentatives of key Justice Law and Order institutions), but now it is\r\nturning to the other stakeholders, the accused persons.
He said the instant results of the Plea\r\nBargaining programme would weed out a number of recurring inefficiencies such\r\nlike absentee judicial officers, case backlog, and overstay of remand prisoners\r\nin prison.
Ronald Mugisa, a man accused of defiling\r\na 15-year-old was the pioneer inmate to benefit from the Plea Bargaining\r\nprogramme in Fort Portal. After pleading guilty to the charges and appearing\r\nremorseful during the process, he was handed a five-year prison sentence. The\r\narea State Attorney, Adams Wasswa, said all the parties involved had come\r\nto an agreement, and that both the victim and her father had forgiven him.
Hon. Justice Dr. Bamwine said that in\r\ndeveloped countries, most criminal cases are plea bargained, which avoids\r\nlengthy trials. "If well handled, this is the best approach for an\r\noffender, so embrace it."
During an interface with the prisoners,\r\nan inmate, Mr. Fred Tumwine, who has been on remand since 2011 on a robbery\r\ncharge, wanted to know his fate since the police file cannot be traced. Hon.\r\nJustice Bamwine said that the area Resident Judge, Hon. Justice David Batema,\r\nwould make a ruling on the matter.
Many prisoners were eager to know how\r\nthey could be enrolled on the programme. Mr. Andrew Khaukha, the\r\ncoordinator of the Plea Bargaining Task Force, advised them to register with\r\nthe prison in- charge who will forward their names to the registrar High Court\r\nto cause list, then a plea bargaining session can be held. Since last\r\nyear when the pilot was undertaken, there has been a lot of capacity\r\nbuilding that has been done.
In July, during the National Plea\r\nBargaining Conference in Kampala, the Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Bart\r\nKatureebe, appealed to Judges to embrace the Plea Bargaining the initiative. He\r\nsaid, "the current backlog calls for extra ordinary measures and plea\r\nbargaining is one of them."
Court of Appeal’s Hon. Justice Geoffrey\r\nKiryabwire said there is need for a monitoring and evaluation tool to gauge the\r\nquality of Plea Bargaining sessions.
Asked why there is only an initiative\r\nfor people willing to plead guilty yet there are many people in jails who claim\r\nto be wrongly accused, Khaukha says the initiative helps such people as well.\r\nHe said: "while this initiative can only be piloted to people willing to\r\nplead guilty, the initiative frees criminal sessions for people with pleas of\r\nnot guilty".
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According to Mr. Khaukha, 200 accused\r\npersons who have embraced the Plea Bargaining programme in Fort Portal helped\r\nthe Judiciary to make a saving of Shs140 million which would have been spent on\r\nordinary trials. A case handled under Plea Bargaining costs the Judiciary about\r\nUShs300, 000, compared to the UShs1 million budget for a case under the\r\nconventional trial mechanism.
Posted 26th, August 2015
