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Maternal health cases require on-site investigation, says Justice Barishaki
Justice Cheborion Barishaki. Photo | Anthony Wesaka
What you need to know:
- The jurist reasoned that visiting the locus should not only stop with land matters but also with cases of maternal health that are very delicate and important.
- It’s the court’s practice that judicial officers before delivering their verdicts, go to the ground and ascertain for themselves what is there.
Court of Appeal justice Cheborion Barishaki has urged fellow judges to cultivate the habit of going to the ground (legally known as visiting locus) in cases of maternal health and ascertain the truth.
The jurist reasoned that visiting the locus should not only stop with land matters but also with cases of maternal health that are very delicate and important.
It’s the court’s practice that judicial officers before delivering their verdicts, go to the ground and ascertain for themselves what is there.
“The lawyers should not be there arguing that you came late, that what.., the issue should be, are these health services being provided as a matter of fact. Go to the hospitals and see, I think we should start visiting locus,” Justice Barishaki said on Thursday during the national colloquium on maternal health, reproductive health and land organised by Ahaki, a civil society organisation in Kampala.
He added: “A lot of locus visits are done in land matters but when it comes to matters of hospitals, the Constitutional Court has never stood up to say, let's go to Nakaseke Hospital, let's go to Arua Hospital, no, they are deciding matters based on affidavits and affidavits are saying things are ok, there are medicines, doctors and it ends there.”
In 2014, then High Court judge Benjamin Kabiito physically went to Nakaseke Hospital to ascertain for himself whether it was out of negligence that an expectant mother died unattended to by the health workers on duty.
The local government hospital had been accused of neglecting Ms Irene Nanteza for more than 10 hours while in labour, leading to her death and that of her unborn baby.
The judge’s visit to the hospital was prompted by the evidence of a midwife Easter Nanfuka who contradicted herself while defending the hospital.
In her testimony, nurse Nanfuka informed the court that during the emergency time when they needed the doctor to attend to the deceased, Dr Mubeezi was in the hospital but she did not know exactly where he was.
Nurse Nanfuka had also told the court that she had sent the security guard of the hospital to the doctor’s place to check whether he was there or not but the guard returned and answered in the negative.
Speaking at the same event Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Nobert Mao applauded the efforts made by civil society organisations towards the improvement of maternal health.
“Things (health matters) are not as bad as they used to be, we were in a worse place and now, we are in a much better place. In this room, there are people who spat on their hands, held the plough and pushed things forward,” the minister said.
In 2020, the Constitutional Court in a landmark judgment, held that the government’s omission to adequately provide basic maternal health care services and emergency obstetric care in public health facilities violates the right to health, the right to life, and the rights of women as guaranteed in the constitution.
Among the orders of the justices of the Constitutional Court were for the health minister to compile and submit to Parliament an audit report on the status of maternal health in Uganda every two years, and for the government to prioritise and provide sufficient funds in the national budget for maternal health care.
The other directive of the court was for the health minister to ensure that all the staff who provide maternal health care services in the country are fully trained and all health centres are equipped within the next 2 financial years (2020/2021 and 2021/2022).
Dr Moses Mulumba, the head of Ahaki, who presented a paper about the role of the courts in advancing maternal and reproductive health, cited several law cases that he has filed to better maternal health including the famous constitutional petition number 16 that has drastically changed the maternal health in the country.
He urged the judges handling cases involving maternal health to look at them with judicial lenses and not with a political doctrine lens like how the Constitutional Judges did in the first ruling.
“Judicial decisions have been left to self-educate on many important social, economic and cultural issues. When considering the Judiciary role in health policy, health policy professionals have expressed concerns as to whether judges are equipped with the educational or experimental background to make decisions involving complex issues such as health insurance coverage, and disease management,” Dr Mulumba said
