How an effective judiciary boosts business growth

It is now evident that courts of law in Uganda have a huge case backlog. This is evidenced by the many speeches at various stake holder conferences and workshops made by the Chief Justice and other leaders in the Judiciary.

For a case to be called backlog, it should have lasted more than three years in the court system before disposal (completion). It is common occurrence that more than half of the cases in the court system are backlog. 

In fact it is almost a “miracle” for courts to dispose of a matter within three years, especially if both parties to the dispute have participated and have not opted for settlement out of court. What challenges does this debacle present for the business environment?

What this means is that a disputed subject matter will most likely not be utilised by either the claimant or the respondent. This is also evidenced by the many court injunctions slapped on the subject matter only to be vacated at the disposal of the suit.

This state of affairs has led to many failed projects, projects dying at infancy, withdraw of local and international financing for projects in dispute. This ultimately has stifled investments and business, by compromising investor confidence in certain businesses for fear of the slow dispute mechanism in the event disputes arose (which is inevitable).

Amid all this, the courts' administration has either played a passive role in trying to have matters disposed faster or even further complicating matters by introducing bottlenecks which impede expeditious disposal of court matters. These include the requirement for a notice to show cause why execution should not be issued against a party who has been adjudged to be in the wrong. What reason for non-payment can or could not be given during the protracted trial?

The time spent from the time when a judgement/ruling is made and at the time when a warrant to execute is finally issued also now requires close to a year. This creates a rather sad and hopeless situation for a successful party who has endured years of litigation.

This is not the end of the harsh story, by the time the warrant is finally got, the debtor will either be bankrupt (insolvent) or will have wound up its business operations considering that businesses in Uganda generally have a short life span as per research.

In order to avert these situations, the Executive and Judiciary must be intentional in having cases, especially those of commercial or mixed civil and commercial nature not last more than two years in court before disposal. In that regard, I propose the following measures:

Appointment of more judicial officers to match the disputes and size of the population. The bigger the population and economy the more disputes are likely to arise.

Widen the pecuniary jurisdiction of Local Council courts to cater for cases below the value of Shs20 million and reduce the number of workshops and seminars attended by judicial officers to ensure their availability at their respective workstations to hear cases.

Appoint retired judicial officers on contract basis to deal with case backlog and create a fresh start for the available ones and set strict performance targets for judicial officers.

Enhance remuneration of the judicial officers to desirable and comparative standards for their motivation, employ more research assistants dedicated to high-ranking judicial officers and enhance digitalisation of the system to improve virtual hearing and disposal of cases to reduce the overall cost of litigation and ensuring quicker interface of judicial officers and litigants.

Look into how judicial officers are appointed, we need to urgently look into public interviews of high ranking judicial officers as is done in neighbouring Kenya to ensure public accountability and a sense of people centred justice as opposed to paying allegiance to the Executive powers. 

If this is looked into, it will boost investor confidence and improve the business growth.

Jude Baks Akampurira is an Advocate of the High Courts.