What is fuelling corruption in lower courts?

L-R NRM youth leaders Shakur Walusimbi, Adam Luzindana and Omodo Omodo being led to the court room at the Anti-Corruption Court in Kampala a few months ago. PHOTOS BY FAISWAL KASIRYE/ABUBAKER LUBOWA. 

In Summary

In our last series of the justice campaign, we bring you the highlights of the recently released report by civil society group; Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU), on the possible factors fuelling judicial corruption in the country especially in the magistrates’ courts.

 

In the recent past, the Judiciary which is the third arm of government, has had its image tainted with real and perceived corruption allegations. Various corruption findings by research organisations such as Transparency International and the Inspectorate of Government (IGG) among others, have always ranked the judiciary among the top two most corrupt government institutions in the country just behind the Uganda Police Force.

It’s against this back-drop that Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU) carried out an investigation highlighting the alleged abuse of office in lower courts of law, both urban and rural courts, and the causes of this vice.

The survey that targeted 15 courts with a diverse geographical reach of Uganda’s five regions (East, West, and North, Central and South) was wrapped up with a report entitled “Temple of injustice: report highlighting alleged abuse of office in selected magistrates’ courts in Uganda”.

The magisterial jurisdictions of Nakawa, Buganda Road, Mukono, Mpigi, Apac, Jinja, Matugga, Kasangati and Mityana, Ibanda, Amuria and Moroto, Kisoro and Kabale were sampled. The investigation was carried out over a period of four months (from December 2013 to March 2014).

A quick run through the report findings shows that the key drivers of corruption range from poor time keeping, to formalised corruption, non–cash bail turns into cash bail, bail refund lost, and cheating of suspects.

According to the executive director of ACCU, Ms Cissy Kagaba, the investigation was mainly to ascertain the different forms, shapes and nature of corruption in lower courts and its effect on justice delivery, image of the judiciary and the common man.
These were the the highlights of the main causes of corruption in the lower courts.

General moral breakdown in society

Moral breakdown has been cited as one of the factors fuelling corruption. Moral break down is a phenomenon in which a major degradation or complete loss of moral values takes place within a particular society. ACCU explains that the abruptness of such kind of degradation may vary depending on the situation and the events that take place within the given society over a certain time.

The civil society organisation ponders how a thieving man’s acts can be blamed on a phenomenon in society. Is it a question of personal integrity or a general integrity deficiency in society?

To this, they cited an example of a magistrate who was recently implicated in an investigation and whose court was thrust in the limelight in 2013. He was transferred to another court in central Uganda pending further investigation by the Judiciary.

However, the civil society organisation in its report claims before this investigation could be summed up, a whistleblower approached them with credible evidence of the same magistrate allegedly soliciting for a bribe of Shs1m from him so he could get a favourable hearing.

ACCU asks what then can one blame this magistrate’s conduct on? It answers the same dilemma saying that by large, the conduct of such officers is a mirror of the general moral breakdown in society.

Timid and ignorant public

ACCU states that a group of whistleblowers from the Kasangati magisterial area reported cases of senior police officers from Wakiso District with ties in the court, threatening them with violence if they do not back off the magistrate.

Indeed, sections of the public submit to this intimidation and back off. They claim that the broader picture however, is that the public generally appears ignorant, at least from face to face interviews from selected jurisdictions, on among others, how to report corruption cases, court procedure and their rights, all of which offer a fertile breeding ground for the appetite of the officers to corrupt the system and even institutionalise malpractices.