Courts stuck with 20,000 cases - census

The chairperson of the National court case census task force Justice Henry peter Adonyo displays the court case census data collection instrument while addressing journalists at the Commercial Court in Kampala yesterday. PHOTO BY EPHRAIM KASOZI 

Kampala- More than 20,000 cases are pending determination before courts throughout the country.

They include 97 cases at the Supreme Court, according to results of the just concluded national case census.
Last week, courts throughout the country closed for two days as the Judiciary took stock of all pending cases, a move senior judicial officers said sought to establish backlog cases in the court system for action on them.

Justice Henry Peter Adonyo, the head of the taskforce of the National Case Census, said a total of 5,844 cases are pending before the Court of Appeal, 871 cases at the Kampala High Court Criminal Division while 97 cases are pending at the Supreme Court.

He said the pending cases at Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court comprise both criminal and civil.
According to the preliminary findings, physical files pending before the High Court in Fort Portal before one judge are 1,836 while 4,438 case files are pending before the magistrate courts, and 2,153 cases pending at Mbarara High Court before two judges and another 944 before the magistrates’ courts.

The numbers
In Kampala area, a total of 256 cases are pending at the Anti-Corruption Court, Family Division (2,425), Civil Division (1,388), Land Division (3,979), Law Development Centre Magistrates Court (400), Buganda Road Magistrates Court (592), Mwanga II Court (434), Mengo Magistrates Court (2,187) while Kampala Capital City Authority Court has 320 cases.

Addressing journalists at the Commercial Court in Kampala yesterday, Justice Adonyo promised that a comprehensive report will be released in February next year to form a basis for the Judiciary to plan effective distribution of resources for case management.

“The exercise has been an informative experience that is helping the Judiciary management as well as the respective courts to weed out non–existent cases. We shall use the findings from the census to inform the resource allocation in the respective courts,” Justice Adonyo said.

ekasozi@ug.nationmedia.com