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Uganda Judicial System
The legal system that existed in 1990 included
customary, and
in some cases Islamic, law in addition to statutory law.
Statutory law was published in the government
Gazette. The
constitution provided for a High Court with a chief
justice and
as many other judges as parliament decided to create. It
empowered the president to appoint High Court judges,
although it
allowed him to choose only the chief justice without
following
the advice of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), which
was
headed by the chief justice. The constitution restricted
the
choice of judges to those already presiding over courts of
unlimited jurisdiction or to lawyers who had practiced for
five
years before such courts. The High Court heard appeals
from
magistrates' courts located in each district. In addition,
the
High Court acted as the court of first instance in
questions
involving elections to or vacancies in parliament. The
1967
constitution also declared that decisions of the High
Court could
be appealed to the Court of Appeal for Eastern Africa
(CAEA), or
to a new court of appeal established by parliament.
With the collapse of the East African Community (EAC)
in
1977, the Ugandan government withdrew from the CAEA and
created a
national Court of Appeal. In 1980 the government made the
chief
justice the head of the High Court only and appointed a
separate
president of the Court of Appeal. These changes led to
problems
in the administration of justice during the next several
years.
The problems stemmed primarily from the anomalous position
of a
chief justice constitutionally restricted to be head of an
inferior court. To eliminate these problems, the NRM
government
introduced the Constitution (Amendment) Bill, 1987, and
the
Judicature Act (Amendment) Bill, 1987, which the NRC
passed in
August 1987. The name of the Court of Appeal was changed
to the
Supreme Court of Uganda. The chief justice became its head
and
the chief administrator of the judiciary. Two new
positions were
created, a deputy chief justice of the Supreme Court and a
principal judge, who became head of the High Court.
Appeals from
any decision of the High Court were to be referred to the
Supreme
Court. To be appointed judge of the Supreme Court, a
person must
have qualified and served as judge of the High Court for
at least
seven years. Power to appoint the justices and chief
justice of
the Supreme Court was placed in the hands of the
president.
Following the precedent of the 1967 Constitution, the
president
had to accept the advice of the JSC except in the
appointment of
the chief justice. The deputy chief justice was to be
appointed
from among the principal judge and justices of the Supreme
Court.
In 1988 the NRM government substantially changed
grass-roots
adjudication by giving judicial powers over civil
disputes, which
up until then had been exercised by chiefs, to elected
resistance
committees in each village, parish, and subcounty
(see Local Administration
, this ch.). In the past, despite their
pretense of
neutrality, chiefs had often discriminated against
opponents of
the ruling party or military government. The new local
court
system responded to the first point in the Ten-Point
Program by
placing petty and customary conflicts in the hands of
democratically chosen officials. The new system also
received
broad popular support, according to a commission of
inquiry into
local government.
Each elected resistance committee was empowered to
constitute
itself as a court headed by the chair of the committee. If
some
of the committee members were absent, other members of the
resistance council that had elected the committee could be
coopted . Cases involving contracts, debts, or assault and
battery
could be heard only if they involved less than USh5,000, a
relatively small sum. However, other civil disputes
concerning
conversion or damage to property or trespassing, and
customary
disputes involving land held by customary tenure, the
marital
status of women, the paternity of children, customary
heirs,
impregnation of or elopement with a female under age
eighteen,
and customary bail procedures could be heard regardless of
amount. The orders that these courts had the power to make
ranged
from apology and reconciliation to compensation or
attachment and
sale. Appeals went to the next higher resistance committee
and
eventually to the High Court.
One of the most important stated objectives of the NRM
government was to restore the rule of law. Toward that
end, three
commissions were either revived or created. The Commission
for
Law Reform, which had been established in the Ministry of
Justice
during the Amin government but had been ineffective for
lack of
financial resources and because of instability, was given
a fresh
start with the appointment of Justice Matthew Opu of the
High
Court as commissioner in 1986. The Commission for Law
Revision,
which had the task of clearing the laws of statutes that
had been
repealed or had become obsolete and of adding
consequential
amendments, was revived. The Commission of Inquiry into
the
Violation of Human Rights was created in 1986 to establish
the
human rights record from independence up to the take-over
by the
NRM government. A High Court justice, Arthur Oder, and
five other
commissioners began public hearings on human rights
violations in
December 1986.
Data as of December 1990
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