JLOS report: Case disposal rate increases, crime drops

 The average satisfaction level of justice served to Ugandans by the 18 government agencies mandated to administer justice stood 70 percent, the annual Justice Law and Order Sector (JLOS) report has revealed.

JLOS consists of government chain-linked bodies that serve justice such as the Judiciary, Justice ministry, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Law Development Centre (LDC), the police, prisons, and Internal Affairs ministry, among others.

“Public trust and satisfaction are assessment parameters of the citizens’ experience and indeed serves as feedback on the performance of our justice system. As a result of this collective approach, our performance is good so far. Nonetheless, we must push ourselves to aspire and achieve higher ratings,” Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo, who released the report dubbed “Access to justice sub programmes/JLOS”, said yesterday.

Likewise, the report showed that the crime rate in the country dropped from 502 to 457.94 per 100,000 persons.

The drop was attributed to drivers such as completion of installation of Phase I of the national CCTV project, which aided in the reduction of crime, especially in the city centre, municipalities, major towns and highways.

The other factors leading to reduction in crime were the expansion of canine (K9) unit from 72 to 79 units countrywide and the police’s equipping of its forensics lab with anti-crime infrastructure, which included Criminal Automated Biometric Identification System (Cabis), Integrated Ballistics Information System (Ibis) that involves electronic registration of firearms.

In his remarks, Justice Owiny-Dollo, who is also the chairperson of the JLOS institutions, applauded the reduction in crime, saying in the absence of law, anarchy can prevail.

“Our efforts in crime prevention and management have registered a positive trajectory with a consistent drop in recorded crime rates. On a year-to-year basis, we have dropped from 502 per 100,000 people at the beginning of the year under review, to 457 per every 100,000 people with a much lower re-offending or recidivism rate of 14.3 percent,” Justice Owiny-Dollo.

He added: “The absence of law-and-order can quickly pave way for anarchy and dampen economic development and prosperity. Comparable cases where insecurity reigns amidst a total breakdown of the rule of law are evident all-over the world for everyone to see.”

The other notable highlight of the report was the increase in the disposal rate of cases recorded from 49 percent to 55 percent.

Justice Owiny-Dollo said the effective and increased performance of the courts of law in the disposal of cases has a direct bearing on addressing several challenges such as reduction of case backlog and reduction of prison’s pre-trial remand population that largely accounts for prison congestion.

Also in the reporting period, Justice Owiny-Dollo pointed out the visible improvement in the justice infrastructure across the country.

“The construction of Supreme Court and Court of Appeal buildings has reached 90 percent completion and the JLOS House construction launched on 10th June 2022 is now at 24 percent with the first phase expected to be completed in 2024,” he said.

“Besides providing decent working spaces for the justice actors, the efforts shall afford efficiency and saving in terms of rent of Shs9.6 billion per annum for the Judiciary appellate courts and $12 million for the JLOS House,” Justice Owiny-Dollo added.

The Justice Minister, Mr Norbert Mao, said as government, they acknowledge that there is torture in the country.

“Your Excellency, we acknowledge that there is torture, we acknowledge that people are imprisoned beyond 48 hours. It’s important for government to acknowledge but that does not mean that we become evil as government. We acknowledge all the bad things that happened and it’s our commitment to deal with them,” Mr Mao said at the launch.

He, however, revealed that to show how serious they are in fighting torture, a standing Cabinet Committee on Human Rights was recently appointed, which committee he said he chairs.

“Therefore, we are determined that everything is done according to the law,” he added.

Mr Bernard Oundo, the president of the Uganda Law Society,  said he was happy that government had come out to admit that there is torture in the country.

“Our continuous appeal to the government of Uganda is that let’s follow the law while arresting the citizens and if they have committed any offence, please charge them and not beyond 48 hours. Another thing that is important is that there must be investigations before arrest of people. So arresting people before investigations are compete is a bad culture,” Mr Oundo said.

Challenges

Some of the challenges that were recorded during the reporting period were case backlog in courts of law, which currently stands at 30.11 percent (50,592 cases).

There is also prison congestion levels that have progressively increased despite the noted faster case disposal and preference for alternative forms of punishment, away from the traditional incarceration, especially for minor offences.

Others were perennial problem of corruption that continues to hover around the justice delivery system and imbalance in human resource allocations, among the justice chain institutions.