{"id":61038,"date":"2023-11-26T16:50:29","date_gmt":"2023-11-26T16:50:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move"},"modified":"2023-11-26T17:39:34","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T17:39:34","slug":"bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move","title":{"rendered":"Bloated Supreme Court to cost Shs35bn, MPs warn against move"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. <\/strong><\/span>A section of Members of Parliament has warned against the move by the government to bloat the Supreme Court with 21 justices and the Court of Appeal with 55 justices.<\/b><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Norbert Mao, tabled the Judicature (Amendment) Bill, 2023, seeking to increase the number of justices on both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court is the highest Court of judicature in Uganda while the Court of Appeal, which also sits as the Constitutional Court, listens to appeals from the High Court.<\/p>\n

However, the MPs assert that the move would see taxpayers pay Shs37Bn in salaries and other emoluments in the mid-term, an expenditure they said is unsustainable in Uganda.<\/p>\n

The warning was issued by Abdu Katuntu (Bugweri County) who rejected proposals by the Judiciary, Law Development Centre and Uganda Law Reform Commission that backed the proposal contained in the Judicature Amendment Bill 2023 while appearing before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n

Katuntu made a comparison of 12 nations whose GDPs and populations are higher than Uganda, but most had fewer ratios of justices at the Supreme Court as compared to their people, wondering what was unique about Uganda to want a bloated Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is this uniqueness you are telling me? I have been waiting for it, that Uganda is such a unique country it needs a bloated Supreme Court. What is this uniqueness that is different from Kenya, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, the United States, and South Africa?\u201d asked Katuntu.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are telling us to create a bill of US$10Mn (Shs37.9Bn) annually, that is in the medium term. Oh dear, the taxpayer deserves better. Judges should be doing their job, they should be more efficient and more effective. You don\u2019t know how many mothers are dying while giving birth up to today. And instead, we are allocating the meagre resources in areas where we think we can work differently and we achieve the same results,\u201d said Katuntu.<\/p>\n

Pamela Tibihikirra, Chairperson of the Uganda Law Reform Commission backed the proposal to increase the number of justices at the Supreme Court but asked Parliament to ensure that the Judiciary justifies the numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do agree with you entirely that we need to increase the numbers entirely, but in a manner that should be justifiable given our population size and look at other ways of handling case backlog. Is the answer to case backlog more judges, is that the only answer?,\u201d said Tibihikirra.<\/p>\n

Tibihikirra also called for a deeper interrogation of what the increment will mean for Uganda\u2019s budget, given that recently, salaries of judicial officers were enhanced in a package that left justices of the Supreme Court walk away with hefty retirement packages.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps there are other ways of handling backlog because increasing judges comes with a hefty bill. The Administration of Justice Act 2020 might have given the Judiciary more resources, but it also comes with a charge on the consolidated fund. So we need to balance our numbers very well because the package is very good and it extends to retirement as well. In principle, we agree with the increase of numbers but we need to think through if these are the actual numbers that we need,\u201d added Tibihikirra.<\/p>\n

Sarah Langa, Chief Registrar said the Justices at the two courts was last increased in 2011, and the new changes will see judges at the Supreme Court sit in three panels, while 40 justices of the Court of Appeal will be deployed at regional level of; Mbarara, Gulu, Mbale, Jinja, Arua, Fort Portal, Masaka and Soroti, while the 15 justices will be retained at Court of Appeal in Kampala.<\/p>\n

This will tremendously improve the number of cases handled and completed by the three panels which will eliminate the case backlog. These will serve the people of Uganda better and the cases will be concluded in a timely manner which will also build investor confidence in the judicial system, and therefore boosting the economic growth of the country,\u201d said Langa.<\/p>\n

Katuntu said that what they support is the regionalization of the court of appeal and that they shall interrogate the numbers.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Uganda<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. A section of Members of Parliament has warned against the move by the government to bloat the Supreme Court with 21 justices and the Court of Appeal with 55 justices. On Wednesday, the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Norbert Mao, tabled the Judicature (Amendment) Bill, 2023, seeking to increase the number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":61037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-61038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nBloated Supreme Court to cost Shs35bn, MPs warn against move - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A section of Members of Parliament has warned against the move by the government to bloat the Supreme Court with 21 j ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bloated Supreme Court to cost Shs35bn, MPs warn against move\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A section of Members of Parliament has warned against the move by the government to bloat the Supreme Court with 21 j ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-11-26T16:50:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-26T17:39:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2023\/11\/sm_1701007471.917501.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Bloated Supreme Court to cost Shs35bn, MPs warn against move\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-26T16:50:29+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-26T17:39:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move\"},\"wordCount\":714,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2023\/11\/sm_1701007471.917501.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/bloated-supreme-court-to-cost-shs35bn-mps-warn-against-move\",\"name\":\"Bloated Supreme Court to cost Shs35bn, MPs warn against move - 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