Citizens will be among key stakeholders who, starting this Friday, will appraise judicial officers in a bid aimed at ensuring high standards of justice delivery in the country.
Speaking on Tuesday to the media ahead of the Friday launch, Supreme Court Justice Mike Chibita explained that over the past decades, there has been an increasing demand for greater accountability and transparency, hence the need for public participation.
‘It’s not about writing a judgment, but how do you treat course users when they come before you? How do you handle them?’ Justice Chibita said.
Adding: ‘For court users and the public, the performance enhancement tool provides a voice to start with. Users can now contribute to assessing service quality, which will in turn reduce delays, enhance efficiency, and build public trust.
The tool dubbed ‘The Performance Enhancement Tool’ (PET) is a web-based system that will help the Judiciary track and improve performance across the institution.
The tool is designed to monitor how judicial officers and court staff are doing, using clear standards and feedback, so that justice is delivered more efficiently and transparently.
Joseph Ssinabulya, the Principal Information Management Officer of the Judiciary, explained that the new performance tool will not do away with the earlier set case disposal targets for the judicial officers, where a High Court Judge is expected to dispose of 300 cases annually translating into 25 cases per month, a registrar, 400 cases annually, translating into 33 cases per month, and a chief magistrate, 600 cases per year translating into 50 cases per month.
Instead, Ssinabulya said the earlier set targets will still be used alongside the new performance tool.
‘The new tool is not actually doing away with the earlier set targets; it’s just providing an objective way of measuring your performance,’ Ssinabulya explained.
‘Those targets are going to still remain there, and the weights are actually attributed to the number of cases that you complete, so you can’t do away with the targets because we are still counting the numbers and then multiplying by the weight,’ he added.
Justice Chibita further said that different cases have different weights and that they will be considered so during the appraisal of the judicial officers.
‘In some cases, we have applications that we can hear and rule on in one day, while in other cases, we have to wait. Do you all remember the 2010 bombing?. It took over a year and had 100 witnesses, ‘Justice Chibita explained.
Adding: ‘How do you judge if one handles 100 applications and another handles a complicated one like the one of the 2010 Kampala bombing case. Will you say that this one handled many and the other only one?’
He said that those who perform well, management will reward them, and those who perform poorly, there will be a need to explain why.
Pius Bigirimana, the Permanent Secretary to the Judiciary, listed some of the benefits associated with the new performance tool.
They included: improve efficiency in case handling, build public trust through transparency, provide reliable data for decision making, guide professional development and training, and strengthen accountability within the Judiciary.
On why the Judiciary decided to embrace the new performance tool, Bigirimana explained that the old manual appraisal system was slow, subjective, and not data-driven.
How the tool works
The Performance Enhancement Tool uses a 360-degree appraisal model.
Performance is assessed not only by a supervisor but also by the officers themselves, their peers, subordinates, and court users such as lawyers, prosecutors, and litigants. Everyone’s perspective counts, which makes the evaluation fair and comprehensive.