THE UGANDA JUDICIARY SCORECARD REPORT 2019 THE UGANDA JUDICIARY SCORECARD REPORT 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................................................................. 2 LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS..................................................................................................................................................... 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................................................................ 6 1.0 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................................. 10 1.1 Background and Rationale ..................................................................................................................................................... 10 1.2 The Scorecard ........................................................................................................................................................................... 11 1.3 Judgment Reviews .................................................................................................................................................................... 12 2.0 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................................................... 12 2.1 Overall Approach .................................................................................................................................................................... 12 2.2 Scope of the Assessment ......................................................................................................................................................... 12 2.3 Stakeholders (Respondents) Targeted ................................................................................................................................. 13 2.4 Target sample sizes – Distribution of Respondents ........................................................................................................... 13 2.5 Data collection Methods and Tools ....................................................................................................................................... 14 2.6 Quality Control ......................................................................................................................................................................... 16 2.7 The Implementation Team ....................................................................................................................................................... 17 2.8 Limitations of the Research ..................................................................................................................................................... 17 2.9 Challenges.................................................................................................................................................................................. 18 3.0 FINDINGS ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 21 3.1 Profiles of Respondents Interviewed .................................................................................................................................... 21 3.2 Description of Litigants ............................................................................................................................................................ 24 3.3 Performance Scores ................................................................................................................................................................. 25 3.3.1 Overall Scores for Higher Courts by Litigants and Legal Professionals ................................................................... 25 3.3.2 Overall Scores for High Courts by Litigants and Legal Professionals ....................................................................... 26 3.3.3 Overall Scores for Chief Magistrates’ Courts by Litigants and Legal Professionals ............................................. 27 3.3.4 Scores for Top Performing Individual Judges and Magistrates’ ................................................................................ 28 3.3.5 Higher Courts Scores by Litigants ...................................................................................................................................... 29 3.3.6 High Courts Scores by Litigants ......................................................................................................................................... 30 3.3.7 Chief Magistrates’ Court Scores by Litigants .................................................................................................................. 31 3.3.8 Higher Courts Scores by Legal Professionals.................................................................................................................. 32 3.3.9 High Courts Scores by Legal Professionals ..................................................................................................................... 33 3.3.10 Chief Magistrates’ Court Scores by Legal Professionals ........................................................................................... 34 3.4 Courtroom Observations Scores ............................................................................................................................................ 36 3.4.1 Courtroom Observations per Court ............................................................................................................................. 36 3.4.2 Overall Observation Scores .......................................................................................................................................... 36 3.5 Evaluation of the Court Performance Through the Lenses of the Judgments Delivered 2019 ................................ 40 3.6 Civil Society Organizations’ Viewpoints on the Performance of Judiciary .................................................................. 63 3.7 Court Leadership and Management .................................................................................................................................... 65 3.8 Challenges and Recommendations: Judicial Officials views ........................................................................................... 69 4.0 Conclusion and Recommendation ............................................................................................................................................... 71 4.1 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................................................................. 71 4.2 Recommendations to address challenges ............................................................................................................................ 71 4.3 Recommendations on Quality of Judgments ....................................................................................................................... 72 Annex 1: Combined Court Scores by Litigants and Legal Professionals .................................................................................. 73 Annex 2: CSOs that Participated ...................................................................................................................................................... 74 Annex 3: List of Judges and Magistrates scored by Legal professionals and Litigants ........................................................ 75 Annex 4: List of Judges and Magistrates Observed ..................................................................................................................... 77 Annex 5: Detailed Comments on Judgments Reviewed ................................................................................................................ 79 2 | P a g e THE UGANDA JUDICIARY SCORECARD REPORT 2019 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Number of Interviews Conducted..................................................................................................................................... 21 Figure 2: Respondents by Territory................................................................................................................................................... 22 Figure 3: Proportion of Interviews by Court Type ......................................................................................................................... 22 Figure 4: Number of Interviews by Court Type .............................................................................................................................. 23 Figure 5: Number of Interviews Conducted per Court 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