Judiciary Embarks on Juvenile Justice Inspection
The Hon. Principal Judge, Hon. Justice Dr. Bamwine(2nd from Left) at the launch of the Audio Visual Link at the Fort Portal High Court
The Judiciary with support from UNICEF embarked on promoting child friendly procedures in line with the\r\nConstitution, Children's Act as well as Uganda's international obligation on\r\nthe protection of children's rights. The Inspectorate team is spearheading the\r\njoint juvenile inspection team.
At the opening of the New Law Year,\r\nthe Chief Justice made a commitment to prioritize children's rights. Since Justice Bart Katureebe assumed office\r\nas Chief Justice, a number of reforms have been embraced such as Audio Visual\r\nLink where children can testify in court without being physically present. Such\r\nequipment has been installed at Kampala High Court, Fort Portal, Mbale and Gulu\r\nhigh court circuits. A specialized children's court is also being piloted at\r\nNaguru remand home.
According to the Chief Registrar Mr.\r\nPaul Gadenya, guidelines on how use child friendly procedures will be issued\r\nbefore the end of the year. He adds that UNICEF has made a\r\ncommitment to install equipment in other courts in the country to ease\r\ndispensation of juvenile justice matters.
In a bid to ascertain the current\r\nsituation of children justice, the Chief Justice directed the Inspectorate to\r\ncarry out a monitoring and evaluation programme with the focus on situation\r\nanalysis of issues concerning children in Mbale, Moroto and Gulu. The joint\r\ninspection involves key actors in the children justice system such as the\r\nDirectorate of Public Prosecution, Police, Ministry of Gender as well as\r\nUNICEF. The districts selected are sample for\r\nthe East and Northern part of the country.
Early this year, the Chief Justice met\r\nwith the UNICEF country representative and discussed on issues relating with\r\nchildren. To equip judicial officers on how to\r\nuse the children justice procedures, Judiciary has started a countrywide\r\ntraining programme for all its judicial officers. So far, 70 have undergone\r\ntraining. It is believed that the end of the\r\nthree day training, the team will have identified other capacity building\r\nareas.
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Posted 26th, September 2016
