Failure to use common sense is not a preserve of a particular age group

For every action, there is an equal and an opposite reaction. I have had the benefit of reading Counsel Tegulle’s opinion titled “Judiciary: Allowing kids on the Bench is messing up the temple of Justice published in Sunday Monitor of January 29, 2023.

Whereas I understand the spirit and the anger that prompted his article, I believe he never identified and interrogated the full scale and nature of the problem at hand hence my learned brother was overburdened with coming up with a realistic diagnosis hence going for an easy target in members of the lower bench.

This is why I believe he is wrong to attack the learned magistrates. I want to categorically state that wisdom and application of common sense have no foundation in years of practice. In my short time of practice, some decisions of some magistrates or even some judges leave shock waves to us at the Bar, litigants, court users and the general public. Examples are all over.  

Whereas the law is clear in our statutes and in precedents, it is not a guarantee that subordinate courts follow the law or accept to be bound by the decisions of superior courts. This, therefore, becomes a matter of individual competence and not the judicial officers’ age, place of aboard, marital status or the privileges accorded to them through the rigorous and rigid lifetime of a legal practitioner right from law school, to LDC to the frustration of enrollment.

Indiscipline and failure to use common sense are not a preserve of a particular age group and we cannot peg it to years of experience.  I will avoid naming some of the very experienced legal practitioners who have joined the bench only to become national custodians of injustice and have abused our judicial systems threatening our democracy and the rule of law. I want to assume Counsel Tegulle knows this very well. It is my humble view that this cannot be blamed on the learned magistrate that joined the Judiciary young. Age should not disadvantage the many brilliant learned colleagues.

If the Judicial service finds them qualified, of which all of them are by virtue of their completion of LDC with an award of a postgraduate diploma in legal practice, then the solution lies elsewhere to sort the misuse of discretion not as suggested by my learned brother Counsel Tegulle.

In preserving the temple of justice, the legal practice has rules and practices meant to preserve the respect of the court by lawyers, judicial officers, litigants and the public.  

Courtesy is core to legal practice and it is a give and take. Whereas many learned magistrates and young lawyers appreciate and congratulate the senior colleagues for long years of legal practice.  The benefits that come with being born early or studying early should be enjoyed with full appreciation that they were not the first nor the last to join legal practice. 

Circumstances have dictated the presence of different generations of legal practitioners. Nevertheless, we  are all qualified officers of court and the respect must be mutual and professional in and out of court.  
I must note that some “senior counsel” have derogated their duty to fellow counsel at workspaces and in courts. Some “senior counsel” bully young lawyers; the same is extended to members of the lower bench they consider younger. This is also indiscipline and a point that requires introspection and change.  I know no human being that wants to be disrespected. In the same regard respect is earned.

The language that demeans judicial officers and characterizes them as “Kids” only amplifies the mess in the temple of justice. Paul Kafeero in Bulandina stated that “Amagezi gaba ga mitwe ssi migejjo” meaning that wisdom is in the mind not in the body size/structure.

Aware that magistrate courts have internal ranks up to The Chief Magistrate, to cure the abuse of discretion, there should be a quick administrative intervention in cases as narrated by Counsel Tegulle in line with the Magistrate Courts Act.  

Finally, compliant channels within the Inspectorate of Courts and Judicial Service Commission should be made clear and the public should be sensitized about them hence this would inform the judicial service commission in making promotions or in taking disciplinary action.

Ivan Bwowe, Advocate of High Court 

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