The Silent Crisis: Why our Courts Are Choking on Delay

And guess what? This is happening a few weeks to the election, uh, cycle. So, we're heading for trouble, um, in terms of backlog. Maybe we'll discuss how we deal with it eventually. But yes, that's that's a real problem that we must deal with. Thank you, Mr., for that.

Um, I'll just give a simple example. I think today we were trying to get a debt at the commercial court, um, for someone to appear for an NTC, which we we got the judgment earlier on this year, and we got the debt for the 22nd of September. We're trying to apply for possession of some mortgage property, about what is a notice to show why execution should not proceed, and they gave us a debt of the 22nd of September. I mean, by the time that happens, I don't know what we'll be telling the bank for the next four months.

Um, looking at scenarios like that makes me wonder: Is the challenge with the way courts are structured? Are the judicial officers the challenge? Is the challenge with the quality of lawyers? Is the where is the challenge? What's causing this delay in courts? What's causing backup? What's the what what do you think is the the reason, the catalyst that's causing the backup to get worse? I know we've talked about this: urgent issues, the succession act, and the election cycles coming in, but I think there is an ultimate reason that we need to investigate, and from your over 25 years of experience, I think we benefit from hearing your opinion on that.

Okay. So where does the backlog come from, in my view? Well, from my experience really. Um, and this is useful because when I started practice in the year 2000, and maybe I should confess, I used to to to to hold out quite a bit in the year 99, but not to, you know, to just stay in court and help a little bit. So, the passion was there even when I was a student. But this was not a big problem, honestly. Uh, the backlog was there, but it wasn't as much as it is now. So what has caused it? I mean, a couple of things. There are those aspects that relate to the to the bench, and there are those aspects that relate to the bar, and then there are things which are just exigencies of the practice. Maybe it's safer to start with those. It's safer to start with those.

Um, so one of them is that our our system of uh solving disputes in this country is mostly adversarial. Um, maybe for the younger lawyers, but we were never trained about ADR, alternative dispute resolution. So we knew it's either you take it to the streets and fight, or you take it to the court. There was nothing like arbitration. I mean, it was there, but we did not leave law school uh thinking that these are that these are other ways of resolving disputes, even commercial, even even criminal, you know. So that that's definitely a cause. um, maybe we woke up a bit late to start bringing ADR.

Now, the other one, which again is just exigencies, I think the way they we deploy our judicial officers, it's something we have to think about now. I think there are some issues there. uh, the idea that a judicial officer should be an expert on all fields of the law, in my view, is unrealistic. It might be controversial, but it's unrealistic. So you take a judge who has been doing criminal uh law at Buganda Road for the last 5 years, maybe now they don't stay that long, and then suddenly they're doing commercial disputes; after 2 years they're doing all of that. I think there's an issue there, and the same there and the same judge if you are an up-country, mostly or sessions and land disputes. It's it's it's all of that. But the reality is that a, there's no lawyer who is an expert in all fields of the law or who loves it so much to become an expert. B. We now know that specialization for lawyers gives you uh better output as a professional. Gives you better output in terms of efficiency of time. Gives you better output in terms of development of your skill and the law. But these judges are also lawyers, very good ones, but the lawyers. So I think part of the problem is the structure of deployment of judges. We have to specialize our judges. This is my view, and our courts. If you don't get to ask me what is the solution, I'm saying it now. Let let the world know that I advocate for specializing our courts. Let's have criminal courts. Let's have land courts. Let's have—we have created divisions. I'm saying let's let's have criminal judges. Judges who do only commercial, judges who do only immigration. I mean, we have them in in countries like the US: criminal court, you just criminal judge, immigration judge, your entire career. The benefits of that specialization are so immense that I think that it would wipe out the backlog because a judge in Gulu, for instance, where where I practice a lot, has to do I don't know, two, three criminal sessions in a year, has to do court vacation, has to do leave, has to do subjects that they have no expertise in or no particular love for, when you could just say you're a criminal judge, that's it, give us results on criminal backlog. So let's have a court which is a criminal court; let's not have Buganda Road stopping criminal cases at 10 and then doing civil for for 2 hours, and then I think we would benefit from that specialization. I think that has also created backlog, in my view.

Then there are things which uh which relate to lawyers. Uh, but maybe before we we we leave the the bench, then there are just best issues of work ethic—controversial, but a reality, by the way, this is both for—I'm really speaking about judges and and and lawyers, just as lawyers because that applies to just lawyers—work ethic, work ethic as created backlog. I don't think I need to explain what work ethic or the lack thereof is. You know, you can actually have a person present at their office but not working. You know, so work ethic is the ability to just get the job done. And that's from both from the bar and the bench. And then uh you have uh delayed justice. This is related to the to the, for me, the concept of specialization arising from just incompetence. The heart is in the right place; you are there every day, but you're not there, or your expertise, as I said, is criminal law, and you've done that, now you have to deal with land cases because that's the nature of the deployment, you know, and in up-country courts there's even nothing like session; they have to do a land case after that a criminal—well, maybe not criminal—we know, but family, and then go to, you know, all kinds, commercial, all in one day. It just it kills your your work ethic. And then you have delayed justice just as a strategy. This one is for lawyers. This one is for lawyers. You have a bad case, and uh your entire strategy is it will never see a judgment. You know, uh I learned that up-country people pay the lawyer per appearance, not per instruction, per appearance, and the figures are quite interesting. Uh, so the motivation to finish the case I I just don't see it, you know, um, so you can have delay the case as a strategy, either because it's a bad case or because there's a lot out of it, it's—but those are perhaps the biggest now, actually, because of yes, because the the target has shifted from finishing a case or completing a case and giving a judgment that is on the point and on. So that's that; it itself is a is a factor that causes backlog. So, and you're going to do—and the Supreme Court said, yeah, you're right, this this should not have been dismissed. A retrial was ordered. We are now—a retrial was ordered. We are now on PW1. That's backlog recreating itself, but it's because active in courts they are forum-shopping lawyers.

Mhm. You understand? So you file five different cases on the same facts and asking the same remedies in three, four different courts with the hope that you'll get a judge who will give you what you want. But also sometimes you file the case with one lawyer, you you don't want to pay him.

Yes. So you forum-shop for another lawyer. So all of us are participating—you forum-shop for another lawyer. So all of us are participating in in [Music]

Yes. You see, from your background and age, it seems you grew up listening to word experiences, but now we're listening to backlog experiences of backlog, and just that takes me to my next question. I'm sure you have handled a wide range of cases, from commercial disputes, land matters—you said you handled very many on pro bono—even you have handled election petitions, and especially as the council for the electoral commission, and yes, you love aviation law. So along the way, you have really experienced late judgments, rulings which are indefinite judgments or not which seem to last forever. So, in your view, from your experience, how do such judicial delays in the level of judgments, rulings, impact the economic rates of the litigants, especially those arising from contracts, from probate, as we said, even from the land disputes and the commercial transactions generally? And do you think as a country who has just sector players, we appreciate the economic cost of such delays, or we underestimate them? That's why we are not meaning to remedy them as soon as possible, to fight them as which which must be fought urgently. Thank you.

Ah, delayed judgments and rulings. I think the the starting point is, you know, we we we tend to dwell a lot on uh on bad news. That's just our character as humans. Actually, I learned that in school of journalism: the day one they tell you that good news is no news, you know, so if you do something good, it will not be reported; if if it's bad. So I'd like uh actually to acknowledge that on the question of delayed judgments or rulings, let's just say delayed decisions, yes, I actually think there has been improvement, okay, on the from the judiciary; there is still uh a lot of cases of delayed judgments and rulings. But I think there's improvement, and that improvement, in my view, is coming from the structural changes in the judiciary: the increment in numbers of judicial officers, increments in numbers of uh courthouses, uh proximity of uh of the courts to the people, and and things like that. Obviously, the number of lawyers has gone up. The economy has grown, although I think you'd find a lot of argument on this, it has grown. Uh, there are many more people who can afford lawyers or who know that you can go to court rather than to the streets to to to resolve a dispute. In my view, however, every lawyer you meet will tell you they've been waiting for 6 months. I have at least three that judgment was supposed to be delivered in the year 2023. At least three. I haven't stopped writing because I learned that writing can also cause you problems. You can lose. You can lose. I stopped writing. So that that we are discussing it is because it's a real problem of delayed judgment, delayed rulings, delayed decisions. I think the first problem: now you have to go back and read the file and get some research done. Maybe the law has even changed, you know, maybe the the case, the jurisprudence, the lawyers provided are no longer up to date. It becomes more difficult actually if you delay. Uh, I think that part of the problem are some of the things we have discussed. The judicial officer is not specialized. As I said, I think we need to get there now. Maybe not for the entire spectrum of the practice, but for certain areas like immigration, certain areas like—I mean, giving an example of the industrial court. I think they're very specialized actually. I'm not so sure there's a huge backlog problem there, apart from maybe if you—if I know they had a problem with numbers which was resolved actually. I think it's now three or two judges there. I've been to that court; we proceed, you get decisions. But one of those three cases that I'm waiting for a decision is actually from that court, and I I know it comes from that time when there was only one judge there. So this lack of specialization of judges, I think is one of the causes of delayed judgments, in my view. Now the other one, as I said again, goes back to this this work ethic issue. Uh, there's also—and and that is again—this is something that is for both lawyers and judges honestly, because I'll give you an example. Usually they give you a schedule to put in your submissions. Once you start delaying there, and and lawyers do that—it's supposed to be in by the 30th, it'll come in two months later—the judicial officer has moved on because they have to deal with all sectors of the practice. Now I have heard of cases of delayed judgments because um the judicial officer is either upset, or I know one where the effect of the decision would have been to cancel anywhere from 500 certificates of title. And the question was, isn't this going to cause chaos on in the village? You know, that kind of thing. So perhaps there's also—it's also time to discuss things like a very controversial subject actually, in my view: do we have our best feet out there in the judiciary? Are you still in the judiciary because you passed an interview and became one, or because you have earned the right to remain there? The constitution is is actually quite thorough on appointment as well as removal. I'm trying—I said this thing called backlog. I said this thing called backlog or delayed judgments because that's just one of the many dots that create backlog, delayed judgments. Now let me talk about the the economics of it, which was the other aspect of your question. When you see a case in court, behind that case are actual people, forget the lawyer's money, which he probably did not get in full.

Mhm. Uh, when I started practicing, the lawyer's real earning actually was in uh you own a case. Yes. And uh part of those remedies that were granted, costs, the bulk of those items was yours. Now, man, it will make you a better lawyer actually. Now the economics, as I said, behind every case there are actual people and companies doing business whose invoices have not been honored, whose contracts have been breached. There are figures running around of how much money is locked up in the commercial court. That's that's good for for papers, for presenting a paper. But I'm just telling you the economics of it is that each of those cases has somebody's life on it. If you have backlog, two things are happening. One, companies are dying. The government is losing money through taxes because companies are filing ill returns. You don't have to look far; they're shutting down and going away every other year. All of these. So that's for the for the litigants. But the other problem you're having is that people now have to decide whether to go to court or or go to the streets or go to the RDC's office. Did you understand? And if—and that's—and there you're still talking cameras. If you're talking politics, the alternative of locking away your disputes in the court without determination is that that dispute will now not be taken to court altogether. And if you're talking governance and you're talking an electoral dispute, you'll see the guns coming out. People people fight each other openly for, prior, during, and after the election. It goes to the streets. So backlog, for me, is a security risk. It's a security risk. I should be able to tell the client that okay, you've lost this case. I mean, you've lost your goods. You've lost this contract. You've lost an election. Let's go to court. You will be heard. You will have a decision in five months, three months, whatever. If you have backlog, you can't do that because the client will ask you when, and you'll have no answer. You see, and you cannot say for every sector of practice, we should have a time limit for determining the case like we do in election cases. Can you do that for commercial disputes? I'm not so sure you can. Actually, codifying those time limits will itself create backlog because then you'll have decisions that are just about beating the beating the timeline, and you know what happens: that creates backlog in the appellate courts because the decision was just given just to to clear. This is actually why I think we have backlog in in the court of appeal. It's not because uh Ugandans do not accept losses. It's because you read a judgment and you compare it to the law, or you have a set of precedents and you don't know which one to rely on. Do you understand?

Yes. So you feel like okay, maybe this client is not interested in the appeal, but me as a lawyer, I also want to know what the correct position is because the very next week a client will ask me what is the position; I should be able to answer the question; that's where the backlog of the court of appeal is coming from—the backlog of the high court which is caused by all those things I've said, including the controversial things I think cause it—eventually take that backlog to the court of appeal. It is in this era that we have a lot of third appeals, for instance. I've only done one. I'm waiting for judgment. It's it's not a delayed judgment. But I'm telling you that we used not to have a lot of third appeals. I don't remember a time when we had so many. Now I don't have the numbers, but you see the discussions on third appeals. So the economics is both both bad for business of backlog, but in my view, we are backlogging the courts out of business and taking our disputes to the streets, to LC's, to RDC's, and uh if I'm being honest, we're overworking the president. Seriously. Seriously, I think he spends more time resolving matters that could have been resolved by the court than you know, giving than driving our bus, if you like, to to prosperity. So those are the the real risks. The worst of them is that at least in the area of governance, backlog is a security problem. If people cannot take their election governance disputes to court, they'll take it to the streets, and we don't want that. That's my take on uh on that question. Thank you, Mr. O.

I mean, just writing on that, we know that these elections are coming up, uh, the election cycle is starting, and we have a scenario, obviously, of existing cases in court, number one, a timeline within which these election cases should be heard, number two, but also you have a scenario where those people, those people who have put in those cases, as you've said, the election cases, their lives are behind that; they've invested money in those election processes; they expect justice as well. Looking—do these are things that have happened every 5 years; we've had elections. Do you think we prepared ourselves any differently this time, and with the approach of maybe having specialized courts or judges dealing with these particular issues, do you think we'd have a much better output this time, and how can we actually maybe recommend, commend those steps to be taken prior to the election cases in 2026?

Yeah. Maybe just before you answer, if I could just add um just as a addition to that question, many of the people who have joined don't know why elections matter in terms of a discussion about backlog. Many many people, many people who have joined the space don't know why elections matter in terms of backlog, so um we have said we have EPS, we have the family division, elections are coming; why are elections important? Maybe just as you answer her question, maybe you could just clarify for many of the people who don't understand, so so what if elections are coming, what has that got to do with backlog? What do election-related cases have to do with with with backlog? Okay, so um may maybe let me start with that. So you have uh a tsunami-type effect on the courts when elections come around, and it comes from the importance of elections. Elections are the represent the agreement that instead of fighting, let's have elections. That's what the elections represent: that we have agreed that we are going to have elections, and if you are not happy about the outcome, you will go to the court. This comes from the the DNA and life and the history of our country. Um, if you read the the books written around the time of constitutional promulgation, those are the sentiments: that we're going to have elections, and if we're not happy about the outcome, we're going to go to court. Now, in order for that to work, as opposed to the other alternative remedies, you know, war is considered a a dispute resolution by other means; it's actually considered to be the most effective. So if that's going to work, the courts must be ready to listen to those people who are aggrieved, whether they're aggrieved uh rightly, wrongly, socially, financially. The fact that there'll be a judge who is going to listen to the grievance eliminates all other

Possible reactions to a loss, or a stolen election, cuz everybody who loses says it was stolen. So the election comes as a tsunami to the courts because we decided as a country, through our laws, that when the election disputes come, we shall, pretty much as the courts, stop everything else and deal with those disputes because of the importance of those disputes. They are even more important than the election, in my view, because it is where the healing comes from so that we let go of the other alternatives.

Now the problem with them is that they find a court that is already suffering backlog, which is why we must not allow—we must do two things. One, we must find a way of tackling the backlog, but also find a way of not increasing it because we know there are some tsunamis coming. One of them is the election disputes. Now, if you look at the numbers, the numbers keep going up. I actually thought that because there was a lot of judicious prudence, which was not the case in 2001, for instance, that election case—we didn't have a lot of judicious prudence—so I thought because of all the work that the courts have done the numbers would go down. No, they haven't, for many other reasons. So every time that tsunami comes, the numbers are more okay, and when they come they do not only increase the backlog, they also stop the prosecu—they stopped the decrease of what was the backlog.

Now, in context of the other things happening, uh, Alfred is quite interested in the EPS as a tsunami that's coming to courts. As I said, that's one of many. The other one is—now he's a reckless driver—the other one is, as you say, this aspect of estate management. Okay, that's another one that is finding a court that's already overburdened. So in terms of its effect on backlog, that's what will happen. We have to stop dealing with the other cases to deal with election matters. Uh, that, because the other cases, the filing keeps going on.

Now, the other aspect of election cases as a backlog creator, if you like, is also the way the law is structured. If you lose the case and you file an appeal, you remain in parliament or in the local government or whatever it is. So if there's a nullification of the election, then there's an appeal, everything remains until the appeal is done; that's a direct incentive to the incumbent to file an appeal. So in almost all cases, the number of cases filed in the high court is almost equal to the number of appeals that will create backlog for the court of appeal. So that's the backlog aspect of election cases.

But on the aspect of one or two things I could recommend—I think it was part of the question—first let me say this. The article that was done that said I did 5,000 election cases and won all of them, I think it requires some clarification. What it is is that I led a team that did those number of cases, participated in strategy, which you can do for 5,000 cases, and it is true that the win rate was anywhere from 95%. That's true, but it is not that I stood in 5,000 courts in the course of 10 years. Maybe now, after 25 years, those could be the numbers.

But in terms of recommendations, I'd like to deal with that not so much in respect of election cases necessarily, but in terms of the backlog that comes from the current status of backlog as a problem and the likely creators of more backlog. We have not, in this country, exercised or exhausted or used the tool of test suits in this area of estates, for instance. A lot of those applications that Ellison was talking about, they're saying the same thing; they are saying that the amendment came and either we do not know about it or we did not take it seriously. Whatever the reason, but most of them are saying the same thing. Now, that law says you must give a good reason to get the court to extend your letters so that you deal with the estate. Now, a lot of the good reasons are also tied up in backlog. That's why I said this backlog thing is a real existential threat, not just to the courts but to the lawyers, and at least in the area of governance, it's a security problem. It can easily be. So a lot of those cases are saying there's a dispute over the land, which is estate property; that's why we have not dealt with it. So they're asking for time to be extended so they can finish the land disputes and then distribute the estate, which is what the law requires.

So my view is that if the judiciary actually did either session for them or did an audit, you'd find that if you did some test suits, did one or two of those applications as a test for all the others, you could actually wipe out that backlog. The other one, of course, is the judicial can have a conversation with parliament to say, okay, let's have an amendment that extends by one month for everybody. Conversation with him, the lawyers might say, well, then we won't have the money that's coming from all the work, but as I said, there's legal practice for economics, but then there's legal practice to solve a real problem. So I think many family decisions they'll create backlog for the court of appeal. Why? Because behind those cases is the only real wealth of the country until the oil comes in, my view, which is our land. So it's not a matter that somebody will say, ah, since I've lost, I'll go back home. No. So along those solutions, including a test suit here and there, you would resolve them, and then you avoid creating a backlog in the court of appeal. That's definitely one solution. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Um, Alfred and I think you're taking us to the—there's another solution we keep thinking about, some of us at least, and this solution can be found within the constitution. The constitution provides in Article 142(2) that when the chief justice informs the judicial service commission that the state of the business of the court so requires, then we shall have people qualified to be appointed as judges to be appointed to act for such a period and basically until they sort the issue that the state of the business so required. Now, His Lordship, the Honorable the Chief Justice has very recently made comments about the state of the business. If the audio was clear enough…it didn't seem to be that clear. I don't know if we can…ship. The Honorable Chief Justice said that Uganda something like needs 20 magistrates, and he said as a result of that we need to start thinking of different ways in which we are able to deliver justice. So if I could just…I don't know if we maybe we'll get a clearer version and play it later, but at a recent conference, the comments of the Honorable the Chief Justice, the Honorable Mr. Justice, do the Honorable the Chief Justice, he said Uganda needs 20,000 judges. I think for me that means that the state of the business of the court so requires that instead of having 100 people carrying a load of 20,000, there are few—there are few colleagues with your experience who would be able to step in and and and resolve these questions, and that, by the way, was before an addition were added; that was before the express penalty scheme came into force; that was before the coming elections where we shall on to the Supreme Court to help resolve backlog in the Supreme Court. What—what's do you think that a more aggressive use of this—allowing lawyers to come in? It happens every—what is so terrible about the Ugandan BA that we can only be appointed as full-time judges but we cannot go and help resolve this issue? Uh, because they don't get the judges from anywhere else. They get them. Okay.

So that's that's really interesting. I am going to answer your question, but let me first tell you what backlog does to a good judge. We've been talking about the ones that could improve, right? I've even suggested maybe let's do a—let's look at that article on removal. You know, maybe we expand the scope of why you can be removed. We've had this conversation. Every lawyer can give you five judicial officers they think should never have been on the bench. But what backlog does to a good judge is it makes them perhaps even worse than a very bad judge. And it will do the same to you as a lawyer in your office. If you have—when I started practicing, most of—at least in the law firm where I started, which was very interesting because all the partners were members of parliament, all six of them, but they always had three or four lawyers on each case—on each case—what backlog will do to you in that scenario is you'll have one lawyer on 30 cases. Right? That affects your love for the law because there's nothing you can do that will give you that one—that one week when you are like, okay, now I can sit back. And it's worse than that: your input into each case, the quality of your work, goes down. So what backlog will do to a good judge, it will make them either frustrated or they suddenly become not as good as they could be. They have no time to publish things. They have no time to improve their law. They don't have time to go to judicial studies institutes. Uh, mind you, I think that all judges should—the way lawyers do—I think all judges, maybe not all, but from some levels, they should have their own CLE, continuing…yes. If you are not going to specialize them, you should demand from them X hours, because if they face a subject they've never handled, they're going to spend the entire case learning the law rather than taking the decision. That does not give you any kind of judicial economy, and that's what leads—it's one of many things that leads to delayed judgment. So that's what backlog will do to a good judge. Now, article…it's one for the truth too, right? Yes. It's a very interesting article, and you know this constitution was made in 1995, for my son who is in law school. That is so long ago. It's so long ago, you know. But the promulgators—I think in the US they call them the makers, the framers—they actually thought about this, and they didn't have—I don't think they had a huge problem of numbers necessarily. I know there was a lift on the recruitment early 90s, I think, which is why 70% of my classmates are either judges or prosecutors, or…but they actually thought that there might come this time when we will need…you know…what's the word they use? Co-opt. Yes, I think that's what was happening with the courts. My own view is that co-opting a judge or two for quorum purposes in the appellate court is not necessarily what that article was designed to achieve. I think the article was designed to achieve what you have proposed actually, which is the risk of not disposing these cases, as I've said, is very high on the economics, on the governance issues if you ask me as well, so it is—it's almost guaranteed in the constitution that you have to—you have, if you have to co-opt, let's say lawyers—it's not just senior lawyers, it could just be experts—you could be an expert in construction law, because the knowledge is not really about the number of pieces or or age, isn't it? You could get experts. So but I should say this: so yes, the answer is this is definitely one of many things that the judiciary could do and should do and should do urgently, in my view, even if it's just for a time to to get out of this backlog situation, but I want to add that it is—it is also not the magic bullet on its own. I think we need to deploy that and a lot of the other things I have talked about to knock this backlog thing out of the courts and also find ways of not allowing it to build up.

So between ADR and the co-opting and increment in numbers and evaluation to see those who should really remain on the bench, you know, the increment of judges which—and facilities which I happen to think is the biggest achievement of the current judiciary leadership. All the judiciary leaderships at different times have done that one thing that you remember them for. For this one, I think it is increment of numbers of judiciary facilities, judicial officers, those welfare issues and things like that, the court of appeal, the Supreme Court. I think that's probably one huge achievement. But I'm saying you need to deploy a number of things that feed into each other: increased numbers, competence issues both on the bench and in the bar at CO 142, co-opting, all those things you need to deploy them. And for me, specialization of judges and courts, cuz a court is just a house. You can call this one commercial court, and you can call the other one immigration court, family court. But if you have not specialized those judges, I think you miss the benefits of specialization in terms of expertise, efficiency and judicial economy. It's time for a judge to say, I was a judge for criminal law in Uganda my entire career, and I was able to dispose cases because I know the law. I know where there have been improvements. I know how to fast-track a case and all of that. And I didn't have to read the file from cover to cover to know what the issue is, which you would have to do if you are not a criminal judge. You would have to do. So I think we need to specialize the courts and specialize the judges. If you add all those four things together, I think you'll pull the carpet from under the mountain called backlog. Yes. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Oh, but may I call you my namesake? Really given what we can do to remedy our work which are choking on delay, and as we have been here since 7:00 p.m., it's approaching 9:00 p.m., and you have an audience of almost 1,000 who have been with us. So it will be unfair if we don't give them a chance to ask one or two questions. So if you have a question you want to ask Mr. Oh, you could do—send an invite and as a speaker. Alternatively, you can send the question in my inbox or in the comment section. We shall have at least one, two, three questions as we approach the end of this conversation. So, as you are sending the question or as you are sending me to speak, I'll maybe ask just one last question to Mr. Alfred. Yeah, you have really passionately shared on your experience of back case backlog, your impact, and from your practice, I understand you have maneuvered case backlog for quite a long time because the—it was, you know, you—for years, backlog has been there since memorial. I mean, the PJ was here, some former PJ was here, and he told us it has held us more, and it was even older than us. So it has been here forever. But from your experience, I would just like you to name just three urgent reforms, either by the bench or by the bar, that we can—that we can urgently force to pre- and meaningfully solve these case backlog issues. I know you have vented on judgment on the bench, but again, having those—you say that if we did them now, either the blog—this issue of case backlog. Yes. Thank you. Okay.

So um…my media and communication facilitator—they are not called lecturers when you go for short trainings, right?—yes, who happened to be a retired Scotland Yard spy—I don't know how he said that—when you make a presentation, try to give your solutions instead of lamenting along the way, so that even if you run out of time at the end, yes, you've actually talked about them. I think there are many—most many of them have to do with lawyers and members of the bar. Okay, many of them have to be to do with judicial officers; some of them are controversial, as you might have heard. Um, some of them are almost—almost unrealistic. But if you want me to pick out the three that I think we need now, I had not fully applied my mind to the magnitude actually of these things of estates, EPS, and now I—I was fully aware that election matters are coming with backlog that I was, so I'm going back thinking it's worse than that, you know. Um, and those delayed judgments that you talk about, they—they are really the things that tell you that the backlog problem is real. Because if a judge cannot give me a ruling or judgment for two years, apart from assume—rather than assume—assume that they're incompetent or evil or hate me, I think as a profession it is my duty to assume that they are probably overwhelmed. You know what I mean? So the problem is real. If you want the three that I think can solve, let me come with the controversial one last. Let me start with the—with the one of co-opting, um, as a special session. We need it. We need it. There are so many lawyers that would want to come and give a decision, especially people with specialized expertise in specialized fields who would find it an easy job because they're doing what they—they love doing. They will come in, but they don't want to be judicial officers because being a judicial officer, by the way, is a big sacrifice. It's one of those proper—I'm serving the people—jobs. Let nobody lie to you. Those people serve; that's all they do. Serve, serve, serve, and get nothing in return. Well, not nothing, but they have to forgo a lot. So I think you'll get a lot of positive participation. So that's a definite—it's definitely one of the big ones, and it is not just the law that actually prescribes it; it's the constitution itself that prescribes it. You might need an SI, but I think that could work. The other one…but that's just for the immediate problem, probably of EPS and and the estates problem. But I think if the judiciary did an audit of cases that could be tried as using test suits, I think that you'd wipe out a lot of what is backlog. I'll give a scenario in the north. I'll not discuss why now, but most of the disputes in the north, a huge chunk, probably over 70%, is about land. Now, what helps is that most of the land is customary tenure. So the disputes tend to be very similar disputes that arose after the war, disputes on titling and division and distribution, things like that, and trespass. If you did a run audit, you would find 70% of the cases in each court up in the north are about that. So test suits would work. Of course, you'd have to do a lot of education about it so that the people buy in, the litigants and the lawyers, just like we've done with Ekmis and ADR. The last of the three big ones, which is just my random madness: specialize the judges. I 100%—I'm sure you see specialization in the—at the bar has made it very easy for a lawyer to just do construction law and be so good at it that his output in relation to time—yes, he's amazing. Absolutely amazing for us to do election cases in the last election cycle. I might have argued 23, and all of them—at least 21—went to appeal. Out of those, at least 10 went back to the high court for retrial. Out of that, at least five went back to the court of appeal for retrial. If you do the mathematics, 45 plus, in between February and maybe a year. It's not because—and you know they're bulky—it's not because I'm a genius; it's because I have some expertise in it, and so I'm able to deploy that expertise to just specialize the judges. Let me know that in the north. Okay, forget the north. Let's do it in Kampala. We have the commercial court, right? But what we do is we take the judges there, special—those who have only been doing criminal and land—they come, and you want to turn them into commercial judges. So young lawyers he has mentioned, you excel at what you do at work, but when you're leaning on your work balance, you show that there's a very thin line between lawyer life and the other life, so—and then, as probably a family man, children also growing up with your siblings, and now you became more like a deputy parent, now call it black tax. So you would imagine the impact it…

Has on your mental health. So, and this month is specifically men's mental health awareness month. So, as a distinguished lawyer, as a family man, as a deputy parent, as even—how would you go about your work-life balance as a lawyer and how would you handle your mental health because you can't practice when your mental health is not in good terms? I think that's the last question from—Thank you.

I, I think maybe before you take that, we've also got a question from Norvik Rafael on Twitter. He's asking, "But even those mission-based judges to reduce case backlog, how can we hold them accountable in the event of incompetence and misconduct?" And maybe you could also—you could check that first before this men's mental health business. I've never heard of these men's mental health month things, but uh, the world is changing. So, I, I, I don't know where—I don't know where—I don't know where Young Alfred is—is—I don't know the stuff Young Alfred is reading about men's mental health, but anyhow, take—okay.

Um, I think I'll deal with the mental work-balance thing last. The, the, the truth is that because of this backlog we are more worried about clearing it than than doing it properly. As I said, behind those cases are real lives and real serious disputes that have to be resolved. So the question of accountability—um, for the work that you would—you would get if—if this idea of co-opting uh practicing advocates was taken, how would you get the best out of them? What I know about uh projects—I think that's the word I'm looking for—this would be a project. It could—it could be a project which is two years. It can even be five years. Uh, but a project is—is—is what you would get as the—as the fruit of a strategic plan. I'm now just tapping from my days in government. These are—these are words which are so important. You have to be able to see almost 10 years ahead when you're doing strategic planning and things like that. When this uh vision—is it 2040—first came, we all rubbished it. When people said, "What is this?" But really somebody is saying, "If you do the following things, chances are—not guarantee—chances are by that time this is where you'll be." So you hear great stories of uh—of uh Dubai and all of that. So what we are saying is, let's first agree that if we don't sort out this backlog problem we are in trouble, and "we" is not the judiciary necessarily; it is the judiciary, it is the lawyers, it is the country, but it is also the economics which are locked up in those cases. So that's one.

Now, how do you hold—this would be—let's say you said the chief justice said 20,000—they don't need to be 20,000—let's say we get uh even 500 and give them uh 2-year contract, right? And—and say, "You, you are here to solve this backlog problem"—that's actually five times the number of judges in the—Right? How do you hold them accountable? In the same way you would hold any project employee accountable. Evaluations, KPIs, terms of reference, uh the possibility of removal just as a project—like any other government project. Same way you would give a contract to do uh the dam or the railway. Um, there are now tools you can deploy to get accountability. But beyond that, the way you would have a judicial oath for a judicial officer, and of course these would do the same. You are really calling on victims of backlog—at least a sector of the victims—called lawyers. I have explained what backlog does to you as a lawyer—to participate in solving the problem. For pay—it looks to me like if not 360, at least uh 280%—you have a chance of succeeding—that's the accountability—uh, beyond that of course you have the tried and tested tools of audit and evaluations, KPIs, terms of refinance and things like that. I think it could work as part of several other mechanisms to solve backlog.

Now, just briefly on the [Music] Alfred, let me tell you something. For us who grew up in the 70s—well, 80s really for me—um, we didn't have the benefit of—"What, like I'm depressed, do you know what I mean? I'm not happy, I'm overwhelmed." Cuz at least in the village that just gets you some beatings—Oops. Just—if you're lucky, you get some beatings. If you're unlucky, they just dismiss you. "What is he talking about?" But it is true that uh at least in recent times, the—the pressures of balancing those five sick things—your work, your health, your peace, the need to go out and socialize and all of that—even just keeping your relationship is a constant job. There's no doubt about it. It's a very constant—It's a constant job. So the question is, how do you—how do you do it? The first answer is, I can't say I'm not—I'm the most successful at doing it. I'm also still struggling with it. But a one-time client in this 20 years, I had a one-time client, a politician. He's called Peter Seatima. He said—and he's right—there are 24 hours in a day. I have learned that you can do virtually everything you want to do in 24 hours, including sleeping, resting, gym, PTA, research, court. I have learned that you can do it. Um, and then your body is—is—is the best machine you'll ever have. So, you have to take care of it. It's—it's really that simple. Do you know the best medicines in my life? Sleep, water, and gym. Sleep and water and gym. Those are the best medicine in marriage. This is work. So in those 24 hours, if you organized, you can pretty much have a fine balance. I've tried to do it and I—I've seen that it can work. Yeah, when election cases come, however, getting that balance is very difficult. But you can still sleep up to 3:00 a.m. and drive to Ginger and do your case and sleep again and drive to Bali and do your case. Just be organized about it. You'll be fine.

That's interesting. That's amazing. We understand your body is your machine. You need to take care of it, and you can use—you have 24 hours to do everything: sleeping, gyming, court, research and everything. Maybe you'll have to have your parting shots before our main host gives us his parting shots. Let's have from you.

Okay. So, just as a parting shot, um, on the backlog, it's a problem. I think we can solve it—honest. I, I, I genuinely think we can solve it if we all participate. Um, on the—the personal aspects of practice, they say the law is not for everyone. But I actually believe that there are lawyers who are born to be lawyers, and there are many lawyers who managed to fall in love with the law, put in the work, and it's working for them. I also think the same applies to judicial officers who have liked the idea of being a judo—judicial officer and they have done the right things and the output is there. The reverse is true. There are those who are just stuck in it and they need to be helped to get out, and the law allows us to—to explore those options—not for the benefit of them necessarily, but for the benefit of the profession. And finally, thank you very much for inviting me. I hope that some of the things I've said have been useful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Alfred so much.

I think before we—we close, um, just in some breaking news um that I think will help settle my brother Mr. Alfred—Alfred Maka—uh, we had called him Young Alfred only because of Alfred here who is the most senior Alfred—um, but—um, from what I'm seeing—I have just seen a statement being issued. I think they were listening to—to us. And so we've just seen a statement being issued from the Ministry of Works and Transport saying, "Effective midnight tonight, the implementation of the automated express penalty system, EPS Auto, will be temporarily suspended following a comprehensive review." General Katumba Wala, the Honorable General Katuma Wala will issue a detailed statement tomorrow outlining the way forward. In the meantime, we urge road users to continue driving responsibly and observing traffic rules. I think—I think some help has come in the way of men's mental health. I see a number of men actually on this space who have been commenting about this scheme since it started. I see Fin and Timohis. I, I've never—I didn't know—I knew him to be a very slow driver. I don't know how—how they—how he was getting express penalties. Um, is—yeah, but—um, to our—to our guest Alfred—Alf, I want to really—really thank you for taking the time to participate in what we believe is a very necessary and important conversation. Um, we are not discussing procedural hiccups, legal strategies or the legal brilliance of lawyers. We are talking about real people and real challenges—people who wait 10 years for their cases to be decided. Widows and orphans who are waiting for their properties to be distributed. And when our law starts—when our law can't answer the questions of our people, it simply becomes a mockery. And the trust of the institutions simply begins to fade away. And you have already told us—um, about the dangers of it in different spheres—in the business sphere, in the land justice sphere, even in the political sphere. Um, we—we think these conversations are important because delay is about to become routine, and because we need to preserve the soul of justice and the heartbeat of justice. And so I want to thank you for taking part in what we believe to be a very important conversation at a time when it is not—we are in an interesting time in the history of the law society. We're in interesting times because of what many people know has been happening within the law society and our inability at the moment, for example—so far the delay, for example, to hold elections to the Judicial Service Commission, um, and even to just progress with the normal day-to-day activities of the Uganda Law Society at a time when the bar-bench relations are probably at their lowest, at a time when it takes a few days to hear a case against the law society and the number of months to hear an appeal. Um, we are—we are—we are living in interesting times and times when we have to learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools, and uh, I think to have that sort of conversation away from the noise of every day to talk about the challenge and pain of justice, we want to thank you for doing it for the last 2 hours. We want to thank you for thinking about the solutions—um, the technology, the specialization, and really explaining to us the sort of thing that specialization can do in a way that we haven't even considered deeply in this space—um, in—in—in—explain to us the value of—of—of—of the mission-based judges and even to just make them a project in a way that we hadn't even considered in this space—to open our eyes to the fact that we need to bring discipline into our courts—the fact that people don't—laziness is actually not a judicial offense. Yeah. That no single judge has ever been taken before the judicial service commission for not delivering on—on—on their judgments. Uh, I think—are—are all things that are fundamentally important. But most of all, we are very grateful to our—to you and also to our—the people who have joined to listen to us. And we shall continue to have these conversations. We shall continue to ask these questions. We shall continue—and—and we are sure that uh—we're walking like—um—like—who—like uh Moses somewhere in the wilderness, but we end up crossing Red Seas because as people are worried about the backlog of the express penalty system—uh, we hear an announcement—certainly not from this space—I know it is because of the number of complaints that—that was—it was really starting to affect men's mental health week as—as we—as we've had—but thank you so much for joining. Now, we always tell this to members of the law society, but it's actually a very serious point. Um, and it's a serious point that members of the law society should consider very seriously. We are—we are closing the space and very soon we'll be having an election. We are going to fight for an election, and we shall use one of these Wednesdays to give you an update on what's happening in that department. But as we prepare for that update and as you prepare when you reach that voting basin, there's only one question that voters are going to have to ask themselves—just one and only one.