(L-R): hief Justice Emeritus, Hon. Justice Benjamin Odoki with Hon. Justice Buteera (Deputy Chief Justice)
Drafting experts of the East Africa Community Political Confederation Constitution were at the Judiciary headquarters in Kampala (Monday May 3, 2021) for a consultation process. They met Judiciary's Top Management headed by the Deputy Chief Justice, Hon. Justice Richard Buteera.
The Political Federation is the ultimate pillar in the EAC integration process, preceded by the Customs Union, Common Market and Monetary Union.
Chaired by Uganda's Chief Justice Emeritus, Hon. Justice Benjamin Odoki, the team is currently collecting views from stakeholders and opinion leaders in Uganda through national consultative forums.
The DCJ committed Judiciary's support to the initiative to help the people of East Africa live in harmony.
"As a Judiciary of Uganda, we are greatly honored to contribute to the formulation of the Constitution of the East African Community Political Confederation," he said. Adding, "we hope that the views gathered from this consultation will significantly help in shaping the destiny of the EAC."
The Chief Justice emeritus explained that his Committee would like to consider the views of Judiciaries while drafting the Constitution for the Confederation since the Judiciary in all partner States is the custodian of the Constitution.
He added that the legislation was a transitional model to the Political Federation as enshrined in the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC.
The DCJ proposed several issues, including the need to put the regional Court of Appeal in place to improve access to justice.
According to Hon. Justice Buteera, once there is a regional Court of Appeal, people will be able to access such courts if they are not satisfied with the decision of the local courts.
Supreme Court Justice, Hon. Justice Mike Chibita, singled out potential bottlenecks that should be addressed as the EAC moves towards a confederation. He said that there should be harmonization of hierarchies in the judicial system, pointing out that under the old EAC, each Partner State only had high courts only as their apex judicial organ with all appeals being filed before the East African Court of Appeal.
Senator Amos Wako said that the now-defunct East African Court of Appeal was the appellate court for all matters except issues of interpretation of the national constitution.
Wako, who is also a former Kenyan Attorney General, said that the focus of EACJ had been mainly on human rights issues, adding that this was due to the jurisdiction defined by the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC.
The DCJ informed the committee of experts that the Judiciary in Uganda would give its comprehensive views in a memorandum after a period of two weeks, which request was accepted by the committee.
The 14-dayconsultations in Uganda have seen the committee of constitutional experts for Drafting the EAC Political Federation Constitution to hold consultations with civil society, local leaders, opinion leaders and the business community, among other stakeholders, to seek their views on the kind of Political Confederation they would desire for the EAC.
Apart from Kampala, the team of experts has so far held consultations with a cross-section of stakeholders in Entebbe, Arua, Gulu, Mbale and Kabale.
Present at the engagement was the head of Civil Division, Hon. Justice Ssekana Musa, Permanent Secretary/Secretary to the Judiciary, Mr Pius Bigirimana and the Chief Registrar, HW Sarah Langa Siu.
Posted 3rd, May 2021
