Special appreciation
goes to Uganda Christian University for granting us this opportunity; the International Justice Mission (IJM) represented by Ms. Finja Schmidt the Program Design ,Monitoring
and Evaluation Fellow for initiating the project. Mr.Omaren
Abraham the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist ; Ms. Brenda the CAS Administrator at
the court who tirelessly guided us during the whole project the Chief
Magistrate Court , Mukono for permitting us carry out this project and aiding
us with the various resources and equipment that assisted us in effectively
conducting this project.
The team also extends gratitude to our beloved
lecturer and mentor, although she was absent, Ms. ACHIENG MIRIAM, who gave us the
opportunity to be a part of and participate in this project as a team and we
highly appreciate the opportunity.
Your guidance, support coupled with your trust
was what enabled us to make this project a success. Thank You.
THE HANDS ON TRAINING
This project was a wonderful experience for
the whole team consisting of a lot of learning, exposure and realizing the advantages
of the project, challenges and other legal concerns that arose during the
training. It was a privilege to be part of the team.
Day 1
We arrived at the chief magistrate court in
Mukono at 9:30 on the 17th day of august 2017. We then met with Mr. Abraham
who introduced us to Ms. Finja. We were briefed and given an introduction and
orientation on what we were to work on; we were then grouped into 3 teams with
two participants in each. With Ms. Finja and Abraham’s guidance we were briefed
on what we were going to do in the five days as we were assigned work in each
of our teams.
On the same day, after breakfast we proceeded
to the archives of the chief magistrate court and we the help of the keeper and
the members of the team we retrieved AC files dating from 2015 to 2017 we
proceeded to carry these to court room 1 where we were to conduct our work, we
immediately teamed up. Two of the teams went on to work on the files while the
other team worked on the audio recording system. We reviewed the files looking
at the dates the letters of administration were applied for and whether they
were granted or not and also the dates in which these letters were granted we
entered this information in the computers that had been provided noting the
case number the year of application and year of grant or if the application was
dismissed. Since the files were quite a big number we carried out this process
in our respective teams for the whole day till 5:30pm with a lunch break. The
day was closed at about 5:30 and with about 200 files covered and some… audio
recordings looked through. We were advised to arrive earlier next day so we
could cover most of the work.
Above is a picture of the teams on the AC filling exercise
Day
2
Saturday 19th, we again met at the
court at 9:00am we started with the files the other team still working on the
audio recording system. We proceeded with the work we had been doing the
previous day. After the lunch break, the other team was then assigned to look through
the Case Filling system. This team was to compare the cases in the Criminal
registry and the ones in the CCAS and note if the cases had been recorded from
the year 2015 to August 2017 and also record these in the computers provided
using the sequence of each case in the 10th position in each given
year and the case numbers. As one team concluded working with the A.C files and
the other team continued to listen to the audio recordings. The day ended at
5:30 with the 469 A.C files completed which marked the conclusion on that
particular exercise and the Case filing system looked through leaving the audio
recording system work still pending.
In set a picture of the A.C files that were being handled by the participants.
Day
3
Sunday 20th august this day was
spent reviewing the usage of the audio recording system with all the other
exercises completed the biggest yet was reviewing the audio recording system.
This consisted of listening to audio court recordings so as to ascertain the
numbers of cases heard per day and to also match them with the ones on the case
list, emphasis was put mainly on criminal cases these we noted noting, all the
cases that were heard in a given year, month and date. This exercise was
carried out by all the teams since the other exercises had been completed. We
worked individually each person accessing a computer with the required program
We had 6 computers and headsets allocated to each person listening to the
recordings of the month, year and dates assigned to each of them and noting
down the cases with the case numbers heard on each of those days. Some people
were able to handle more than the allocated number of days. Therefore we helped
each other out so as to complete this exercise.
The sessions were meant to end on Tuesday but
we were informed that due to our efficiency, we had finished the work in the
three days and therefore there was no need to continue since we had completed
the exercise in fewer days than had been anticipated. We therefore successfully
concluded this exercise at 6 pm and this marked the end of the project.
This was
an experience worthy to encounter and we learnt how long it takes for one to
get letters for administration when one has applied for, some would get them in
a short period like four months this could be dependent on certain
circumstances and others could even take a year and others would not be granted
those letters of administration for various reason and To
Determine the percent of criminal cases that are entered into CCAS by taking a
sample of the cases entered into the Criminal Register and verifying that these
cases have been entered into CCAS and to Calculate the percent of criminal
hearings that have audio recordings by listening to the audio files for each
courtroom for selected days and comparing the recorded hearings to the hearings
on the Cause List for the same days.
This report was by fourth year students of Uganda Christian University, (UCU) Taliba Tracy, Karungi Jackline Bahigwa, Akongo Fiona, Dombo Joyous Nahirwe and Ahabwe Peter under the supervision of Ms. Finja Schmidt and Mr. Abraham Omaren
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