Africa-Press – Uganda. The Judiciary has closed the Supreme Court indefinitely following the fire that gutted the offices of Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo.
The indefinite closure of the highest appellate court in the land, according to the Judiciary head, is to allow the landlord assess the extent of the damage of the four-storey building to establish whether it is still safe.
In a May 30 internal memo, the Chief Justice said following the April 27 fire incident, there have been subsequent water leakages which have caused ceilings to collapse and flooding of chambers of the judges.
“These incidents have made it unsafe to continue in occupation of the said premises without a proper assessment of the damage, and effecting appropriate rectification. The landlord has been notified to assess and rectify the defects,” the memo, signed off by the Chief Justice, reads in part.
It adds: “For these reasons, the top management of the Judiciary has decided, and I hereby direct that the Supreme Court be closed, as the premises undergo renovations and rectification of defects.”
Going forward, Justice Owiny-Dollo said the affected justices and support staff can execute their work from home apart from the judge on duty, who will now be operating from the High Court premises near City Square.
The Chief Justice also clarified that the court registry will still be open and so will the newly launched online court filing, Electronic Court Case Management Information System (ECCMIS) centre, for purposes of registering new cases.
Impact of the closure
Ms Harriet Ssali, the deputy registrar of the court, said the civil appeal session that had about 32 cases and was to begin this week, has since been postponed.
“We communicated to the concerned parties and lawyers about the postponement of the session. Of course, this will affect the hearings of the cases but we hope this will not take more than two weeks before we get an impact assessment report from the landlord,” Ms Ssali said yesterday by telephone.
Also affected is the operations of the East African Court of Justice Registry, which is also housed at the same court building.
The indefinite closure of the court comes at the time when the construction of the twin towers which will serve as the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, near City Square, are in advanced stages.
Construction of towers is expected to be complete by the end of the year.
Background
On the morning of April 27, fire gutted the chambers of the Chief Justice located on the second floor.
The police in their preliminary report, attributed the cause of the fire outbreak to air conditioner in the Chief Justice’s chambers.
Ever since the incident, the court has not sat as a panel.
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