Over 100 workers to lose jobs in new Judiciary structure

At least 129 non-judicial staff in the Judiciary are set to lose their jobs following the Cabinet’s revision of the structure.

The affected job categories include training officers, assistant librarians, computer operators, data entry clerks, pool stenographers, accounts assistants, accounts assistants grade III, clerical officers, library assistants grade II, office typists, records assistants, records assistants grade I, records assistant grade II, telephone operators, and askaris.

The biggest number of those affected are the clerical officers, who are 50.

“Reference is made to the Cabinet Minute extract 195 (CT 2023), which revised the non-judicial staff structure for the Judiciary Service. However, some positions were abolished. The purpose of this memo is to inform and request you to release the invited staff in your respective courts and departments to attend a one-day meeting,” Mr Pius Bigirimana, the permanent secretary to the Judiciary, wrote to the registrars on May 13.

Explaining this development yesterday, Mr Bigirimana said they will redeploy some of them in the new structure and that those who can’t be taken on will be paid.

“They haven’t lost their jobs as such but because certain positions were abolished, some are going to be redeployed in the new structure, that is if they fit in and those who won’t, we shall give them their packages and they go home. Some might be sent to the public service for redeployment,” Mr Bigirimana explained in a telephone interview.

Mr Bigirimana added that he has since met the affected staff and sensitised them on what to do.

“The other day, I sensitised them to come up with a plan to either fit in the new structure or exit,” he said.

He said the restructuring exercise is expected to be concluded by the end of the first quarter of the new financial year, (around September this year).

The new Judiciary structure came about following the enactment of the Administration of the Judiciary Act about four years ago.

The core objective of the Act is to make the Judiciary a self-accounting institution since it hasn’t been for long and yet the Constitution demands so.

The Administration of the Judiciary Act, 2020, among others, gives effect to chapter eight of the Constitution to, among others, provide for the efficient administration of the institution; to establish the Judiciary Council to advise the Chief Justice about the administration of justice and the courts and to establish a structure within the Judiciary to improve its performance.

The enactment of the Act followed several complaints about the huge case backlog, and inefficient and ineffective performance that had been attributed to this arm of government not being self-accounting and being left to external interference. However, some legal minds have a different take on the development.