Assessment of local council courts in the administration of justice In Uganda

Abstract

Local council courts in Uganda can be regarded as the grass root level of the justice system in Uganda based on a village module. On the clustering that every village must have an administrative unit known as the local council one, at the same time, a local council court is established by virtue of the existence of the local council administrative unit. In the administrative set up, the status quo offers existence of administrative units of local councils one to five however, the most prominent local council judicial clusters are from local council one to three. The concern of this paper is not on the of the local council administrative units but rather the courts in the delivery of justice and the access to the same. Its common that the most affordable justice both geographically and pecuniary is at the local council courts level therefore, the question of access to justice from the abstract would seem a no question at all until however once we get into other factors, one would realize that lots of questions as to whether access to justice is limited to pecuniary or geographical factors. This paper therefore seeks to examine the prospect or existence of these courts have the capacity to delivery justice to the population that seek it, in effect, the notion of access to justice does arise on various fronts and factors such as cost, gender sensitivity, distance, affirmative action in reference to marginalized group. The study made some recommendations for how to deal with the issues at hand, including educating the public and court personnel about the court fees that are due for the different types of cases by posting the fees on the court's notice board, on its doors and premises, on its website, and by giving out brochures to the public. It also recommended ensuring that office holders in LCCs are empowered through training, capacity building, and extensive public awareness of the issues at hand.