"We
have about 20 active judges," he said, "so in
a year they can be able to deal with about 1,200 at most,
and that is if they work actively. Justice Julia Sebutinde
is in West Africa, Justice Faith Mwondha is now the IGG.
So effective service delivery is hindered in a way and we
can only deal with these problems if we increase the number
of judges."
Mr Byaruhanga's statistics, however, come
into question. If every year a judge has 250 working days,
in 300 years they will have 75,000 working days, therefore
assuming they dispense 1,200 cases annually, it would take
about 28 years to clear the current backlog of cases assuming
no other cases emerge.
However the statistics show that pending cases
are stifling judicial processes and indefinitely keeping
thousands locked in jail. Mr Byaruhanga said statistics
obtained at a prison decongestion meeting on April 6, revealed
that although the approved prison population stands at 9,041
inmates, the average population then stood at 18,585, presenting
an excess of around 9,491 inmates.
He implored the government to recruit more
judges and magistrates, and facilitate judicial processes.
He also appealed to Parliament to amend laws to allow lower
courts to handle more serious cases.
He said that analysis from the data centre revealed that
the case disposal rate is currently at 16 percent while
backlog clearance rate is at 19 percent.
Court statistics, Mr Byaruhanga said, paint
a grim picture, showing that case backlog is increasing
at an alarming rate. He said 4,187 cases were carried forward
from 2004 to 2005, while 1,748 new cases were filed for
2005 and only 940 were disposed of that year, leaving a
backlog of 4995 cases.
The Director of Public Prosecution has previously
implored the government to hire more lawyers to ease the
burden of cases but to no avail.
According to a source in the public service ministry, the
approved manpower for the DPP's office consists of 216 graduate
lawyers and166 state prosecutors who hold diplomas. Instead
the DPP has about 94 state attorneys working the whole country.
Adapted from The New Vision
566 on death row
Monday, 11th December, 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Charles Ariko
A TOTAL of 566 inmates condemned to death
are being imprisoned at Luzira Prison and Kirinya Prison
in Jinja.
Previously, condemned inmates were kept at
the tightly-guarded Upper Prison in Luzira.
However, because of congestion, some had to
be transferred to Kirinya. Women inmates are held at the
Women’s Prison at Luzira.
The Assistant commissioner of Prisons in-charge
of prisoners, Wycliff Jack Kururagyire, yesterday said 367
of the inmates were at Luzira and 199 in Kirinya.
He named the longest serving inmate on death
row as Hajji Birikade, who has been in Luzira for the last
24 years. Birikade was sentenced to death on August 17,
1982 after he was convicted for kidnap with intent to murder.
Criminal offences that attract the death sentence
include treason, murder, rape, terrorism and aggravated
robbery.
Once an inmate is convicted by the High Court,
he/she has a right to appeal before the Supreme Court.
But once the Supreme Court, which is the highest court in
the country, upholds the death sentence, the inmate is kept
in prison pending his/her execution.
The President, in exercise of his powers using
the Prerogative of Mercy, is the only person who can set
inmates free after they are condemned to death.
Before the President pardons an inmate, a
Committee of Prerogative of Mercy, composed of 12 members,
meets and submits the names of those seeking presidential
pardon.
The Attorney General/Minister of Justice chairs
the committee that is under the Ministry of Justice.
The committee is charged with the responsibility
of processing a report on all the inmates seeking a presidential
pardon.
The report is composed of facts of the case,
the evidence adduced, the findings and a brief outline of
the background of the accused. The report also indicates
why the inmate should be considered for clemency.
Upon receiving the report and the names of
inmates seeking pardon, the President may then exercise
his right of pardoning any inmate.
The last inmate who benefited from such a
presidential pardon was Abdullah Nasur, the former Central
Province Governor in the late Idi Amin’s regime.
Nasur was released on September 11, 2001 after
22 years on death row. He had been convicted for the murder
of a Masaka mayor in 1972.
The President also signs the death warrants
for the inmates who are executed.
Prisons authorities carry out executions within
72 hours on receiving orders to do so.
The last executions at Luzira were carried
out on April 27, 1999 when Hajji Musa Sebirumbi was executed
along with 27 others.
Sebirumbi was a former Uganda People’s
Congress chairman for Luweero South and the area National
Security Agency (NASA) operative.
He was convicted for the murder of Edidian
Lutamaguzi and four others who refused to disclose the whereabouts
of then rebel leader Yoweri Museveni and members of his
National Resistance Army (NRA) during the 1980s war against
the late Milton Obote’s regime.
Condemned inmates in 2003 petitioned the Constitutional
Court, saying the death penalty should be abolished.
The court, however, upheld the penalty as
enshrined in the constitution but ruled against prolonged
stay in prison after one is condemned to death, saying it
amounted to psychological torture.
The inmates appealed against the ruling before
the Supreme Court, which is yet to give its ruling.
Adapted from ,Daily Monitor
News | December 27, 2005
Luzira inmates
ask for day-care centre
AL-MAHDI SSENKABIRWA
LUZIRA FEMALE inmates in Luzira women’s prison have
asked the government to establish a day- care centre within
the prison premises for their babies.Over 200 inmates aged
between 16-35 years also urged the prison authorities to
provide a separate ward to accommodate breast- feeding mothers.“We
are proud that our babies are truly catered for here in
terms of nutrition but we lack a day care centre where they
can play from,” said one of the inmate leaders, who
preferred anonymity.She said, “We also request for
a separate ward for breast feeding mothers from the rest
of the inmates.”The prisoners, including those on
the death row, voiced their concern on Tuesday during a
community dialogue with members of the Uganda Muslim Women
Association (UMWA) at the prison main hall.The UMWA Chairperson,
Hajjat Aminah Sekibembe, said their visit was intended to
examine how breast-feeding mothers cope with the conditions
in the cells.During the visit UMWA donated an assortment
of items like sanitary pads, soap, petroleum jelly as its
end of year package to inmates. “We have not been
engaged in these activities, but we promise to carry it
on,” she saidThis visit was part of UMWA community
dialogue Programme which is facilitated by the Ministry
of Gender, Labour and Social Development in conjunction
with United Nations Children’s Fund.Out of over 200
women inmates, at least 20 are breast-feeding. Women are
imprisoned with their babies and when the babies clock two
years are transferred to Naguru Reception Centre. She applauded
the prison authorities for observing human rights of inmates
and providing them with basic needs.The officer in charge
of prison welfare, Ms Sarah Kyazze, said plans to set up
a day-care-centre were underway.“We recently struck
a deal with a good samaritan and the construction of the
centre would soon start,” she said amid clapping
from inmates.
Daily Monitor
News | October 11, 2005
Kiboga inmates on hunger strike over poor feeding
IVAN KIBUKA & AGNESS NANDUTU
KIBOGA
PRISONERS in Kiboga District are on a hunger
strike protesting poor feeding, accommodation and health
conditions.
One of the prisoners of Kiboga Prison, who
led the strike Mr Kiiza, told Daily Monitor at the prison
yesterday that they had persistently complained to the prison
authorities about the poor conditions, but nothing had been
done to reverse the situation.
By the time of filing this story, the prisoners
had refused to eat or come out of the prison to go for work.
The District Police Commander, Mr Charles Dittemu, tried
to intervene but the prisoners refused to talk to him demanding
to see the Resident District Commissioner, Ms Margaret Kasaija,
whom they petitioned.
However, Kasaija said she was no longer holding
the RDC post and neither was she in Kiboga to give any help.
The prisoners demanded that the prison authorities improve
their meals, which they said were pathetic.
Kiiza said the prison was built to accommodate
50 prisons, but it houses over 150 prisoners today.
He said overcrowding has led to poor sanitation, resulting
in epidemics.
He said the prisoners were on near starvation and whenever
the prison gives them food which is posho (maize flour),
it is always too little and without sauce.
The District Prisons Commander, Mr Peter Kasozi,
admitted the prisoners get little food, but argued that
does not amount to starvation.
Kasozi said the prison is overcrowded because many suspects
on capital offences cannot be taken to High Court in Kampala
for trial due to lack of money for transport.
Daily Monitor
News | October 11, 2005
Uganda executes convicts on political
basis, says report
SOLOMON MUYITA
KAMPALA
A NEW study on human rights violations in
Uganda has revealed that the death penalty is used selectively
on the people in the country, basing on their political,
religious or social standing.
The International Federation of Human Rights
(FIDH) has accused Uganda of breaching a number of its obligations
with international instruments.
It called for an immediate suspension of the death penalty
in Uganda, as the country examines its findings and implements
recommendations.
The French-based organisation operating in
141 countries including Uganda is among the top three international
human rights organisations together with the Amnesty International
and the Human Rights Watch.
All its recommendations are in line with total abolition
of the death sentence, which it calls "State sanctioned
killing."
While releasing its 46-page report at the
Speke Hotel in Kampala on Monday, FIDH delegate and senior
Criminology academician from the University of Greenwich,
London, Dr Richard Wild, said over 80 percent of inmates
in Uganda on death row are either inappropriately charged
or innocent.
FIDH instituted an international fact-finding
mission on the death penalty in Uganda jointly with the
Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI), a local NGO
that recently facilitated a petition challenging the death
penalty in the Constitutional Court.
"The FIDH and the FHRI have found out that there are
a number of elements inconsistent with the international
human rights obligations of Uganda in the context of the
administration of justice,” Wild said.
The report said the mission was able to meet
a number of officials, including the Minister of Internal
Affairs and the Chief Justice of Uganda. The delegates were
also able to visit Kirinya Prison in Jinja and met prisoners
on death row.
Adapted from The New Vision
Tuesday, 11th October, 2005
By Charles Ariko
THE way executions are carried out in Luzira
Upper Prison has a devastating effect on both the prison
personnel and the other death row inmates, a report by an
international human rights organisation has said.
The report said executions in Luzira Prison
were organised in a manner that spread fear and terror in
the condemned section where death row inmates are kept and
where the executions take place.
The report titled: Challenging the Death Penalty
by the International Federation of Human Rights (fidh),
gives a chilling account of how executions are carried out
in Luzira.
Dr. Richard Wild, a senior lecturer on criminology
at the University of Greenwich in London, carried out the
research whose findings he presented yesterday at Speke
Hotel in Kampala as part of the activities to mark the World
Day Against the Death Penalty.
“The execution chamber at Luzira, the
only place where executions are carried out in Uganda, is
capable of hanging three prisoners at a time.
“The prisoners can be led singly or
in threes, supported by prison warders. At the execution
chambers, the prisoners’ legs are tied up and the
noose pushed over their heads to their necks. At the back
of the prisoners’ heads, the noose is tightened, cutting
off their breathing.
The metal loop is normally on the right-hand
side of the prisoners necks so that when they drop, the
loop would be directly under their cheeks and it would break
the cervical bone, killing them instantly,” the report
said.
It adds, “The prisoners are put atop
a table. The table is designed to open at the bottom when
a certain gear-like lever is pressed. The aim is to place
the noose around the prisoners head, press the lever so
that the table opens at the bottom and let the prisoner
hang from the neck until he is dead,” the report said.
It quotes a death row inmate identified as
Mugerwa Nyansio as saying, “I recall the day when
the prison warders stopped in front of my cell and called
out three of my roommates. They took all of them, one at
a time. They were dragged crying, screaming, screeching,
shrieking and squawking. I watched as three fellow inmates
with whom I shared my days and nights were taken away to
be executed and I was left alone in the cell.”
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|
FOUR inmates of Kabasanda Prison in Mpigi district-Central
Uganda- have died of cholera, according Ugandan News paper
reports on Friday 30th December 2006.
