4 November 2008
editorial
Two new developments were announced last week that would ease the administration of justice for the poor.
On Friday, Chief Justice (CJ) Benjamin Odoki launched the Legal Aid Basket Fund to help poor people access justice free of charge.
The same day, the CJ announced that informal courts would be set up to ease the settlement of justice in civil cases involving not more than Shs10 million.
This is a very good development judging that many people who happen to conflict with the law, cannot afford the cost of justice in our courts and so either rot in jails while on remand, or decide to admit crimes they never committed so as to serve sentences as quickly as possible.
This will also relieve the pressure off the prisons and the resultant budgetary constraints. Case backlog could be an issue of the past. In most courts, petty crime forms the majority of cases and it involves the poor and if these are addressed through informal courts, and for those that go to the existing courts, such backlog could be avoided.
The Legal basket fund will help the many poor criminals who are ignorant of the law. These two developments will also reduce corruption, which is rife in the Judiciary and the Police Force, which institutions play a vital role in the administration of justice.
Similar, systems are already working in other professions say in the medical field where senior nurses handle minor illnesses and also individuals are trained to perform deliveries such as the traditional birth attendants.
Although women lawyers, through Fida, have been handling many issues, especially those involving women and children, they have been overwhelmed by the demand for their services and because human resource requirements cannot allow them to reach all areas and help other categories of people, this is where informal courts and the Legal Aid Basket Fund would be helpful.
Nevertheless, it has to be mentioned that the setting up of these two institutions alone won't help if the majority of the poor they are supposed to benefit are not made aware of their existence. A big campaign must be launched to reach the lowest levels, perhaps through the LC structure and the clerics involved so as to reach as many people as possible.
This is when these developments will be useful to create an impact in society. The informal courts must be freed of corruption because that is the easiest way to kill them.
If well managed, the informal courts will go a long way towards ensuring that justice is not only but also seen to be done.
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