THE STATE OF ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN UGANDA

To many people, access to justice simply means improving one's access to courts of law or guaranteeing their legal representation. However, it encompasses more than just that. Access to justice encompasses the ability of people to seek and obtain remedies through formal or informal institutions of justice while in compliance with human rights standards.

Some of the hindrances to access to justice include (among others):

1. The inability to physically access justice institutions like poverty, physical distance, poor infrastructure, physical disability, among others;

2. The inability of the people to understand procedures involved in accessing justice;

3. The lack of awarenesses of the public as to their rights and duties;

4. The high costs involved in accessing legal advice and representation;

5. Lack of knowledge on alternative dispute resolution mechanisms a that are much cheaper than court proceedings;

6. The backlog of cases in courts of law that leads to delayed justice;

The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the barriers in access to justice.

There have been efforts to mitigate these barriers through legal empowerment, technological innovations, provision of free legal services, partnerships among legal service providers and more.

However important to note is that Uganda lacks a consolidated legal framework on legal aid; which in a way, cripples the efforts to mitigate the barriers to access to justice.

Feel free to air your views.

Access to justice is indeed so difficult more especially for the ordinary poor persons in Uganda who cannot either afford services of a lawyer, cost of filing court documents for their cases to be heard before the courts of law.

It is imperative to note that whereas majority ugandans are illiterate about the justice system but more needs to be done to build confidence among ordinary persons that they can actually receive justice for from the judicial system.

Corruption has been evident in our courts which has also scared litigants from pursuing their claims.

Some of the court practices and procedures have also made it difficult for litigants to be able to access justice. I for one I don't appreciate the rationale for the establishment of a logistic court at buganda road court. This is the only court that handles ceiminal matters to do with trading in prohibited products from the endangered species etc.

You find that poor defendants are brought from the boarder districts of those country to defend themselves, but these have no money to transport witnesses and yet they are innocent till proved guilty. How will then access to justice be achieved. The best way would have been to try suspects within the jurisdiction of where crimes were committed.

We equally face challenges of quack lawyers who mascarade as lawyers whereas not and end up messing cases of the unsuspecting members of the public.
Such issues and many more, in addition to the lack of an a legal aid law to operationize the provision of legal aid.

Thank you Counsel