Uganda Law Society has advised Parliament to concentrate on legislation that embarks on seeing the capacity balance in the prosecution, investigations and judicial processes instead of passing laws that are currently not necessary like the abolition of private prosecutors.
According to the society's president Bernard Oundo, such a move by parliament deprives people of their constitutional mandate of power.
However, the motion seconder and woman legislator for Terego District asserts that the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions needs to be left independent to perform its role.
"We are wasting time with the private prosecutors instituting criminal suits and later the DPP comes to take over. You cannot trust individuals, you can trust a government entity that has a responsibility to do prosecution," said Hon. Rose Obigah.
According to Obigah, the office of the Director of Public Prosecution is fully capacitated to execute its prosecutorial mandate on all criminal offences and therefore should be left alone.
"Even their payments were enhanced, their welfare has been worked on and even taxes waived on their salaries and to me, the government is more neutral than a mere individual," added Obugah
However, the Uganda Law Society wants parliamentary motion movers to explain clearly the problems associated with private prosecution which are compelling them to deprive the people of their power.
"In my view, I don't understand what the problem they are trying to cure. In legal language we call it mischief, what's the mischief they are trying to cure because, in the way we see it, there are adequate safeguards within the criminal justice system to stop the abuse of the institution of powers by people," Bernard Oundo, President Uganda Law Society.
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The society's president Bernard Oundo further asserts that such a move by Parliament raises many constitutional questions which Parliament should be careful about before tabling the bill.
According to Oundo, Parliament should concentrate on the pertinent issues currently affecting justice delivery processes like capacity imbalance in the prosecution, investigation and judicial administration which is one of the reasons for the stalling of cases.
"You must appreciate the DPP has a number of challenges and one of them is insufficient resources and I think not just the DPP but we should also be talking about the police, the power of the police to investigate so you can't just increase the Judiciary and you forget the police and the DPP," remarked Oundo.
Section 42 of the Magistrates Courts Act offers the private prosecutors the mandate to institute criminal proceedings on the accused much as Article 120 of the constitution empowers the DPP to take over any prosecution on any criminal case in court.
The Uganda Law Society reacted back after Parliament granted the Busiki County legislator Paul Akamba leave to introduce a bill that seeks to abolish private prosecutors from prosecuting criminal proceedings, a move that has been seconded by the Terego district Woman MP Rose Obigah.
