PRISONS STUCK WITH OVERWHELMING FIGURES OF INMATES MOST OF THESE ARE PETTY CASES ARISING FROM INCOMPTENCE
By Drone Reporter
The Uganda Prisons Service-UPS is reportedly stuck with close to 7,000 inmates whose trial has stalled for more than two years.
Our reliable sources have revealed that most of those cases arise from incompetence of investigating officers (IOs) most of whom were driven by bribery.
On the other hand, Frank Baine, the spokesperson of the Uganda Prisons Service has revealed that 4,440 suspected capital offenders completed their mandatory six-month remand period and were committed for trial in the High Court and another 2,472 are still waiting for committal to the High Court for trial.
This implies that the suspects are caught between two stages. In such a scenario, they cannot apply for bail, yet they are not yet convicted. According to Baine, the prisons service has all the committals and has been waiting for trials to start over the last two years. He adds that if the Justice system was fast, some of the suspects in this category would be out of the judicial system.
“All these in essence are part of what is contributing to the congestion in the prisons and we are of course appealing to the Justice Law and Order sector stakeholders to expedite these cases so that these people’s fate is determined,” Baine said.
Judiciary spokesperson Jameson Karemani attributes the problem of stalled capital offenders’ trials to lack of funds to organize High Court sessions, yet during the same time, the country was battling the COVID-19 pandemic which scaled down the court activities. According to Karemani, a single High Court session costs about 40 million Shillings.
The Drone Media can exclusively reveal that a bigger percentage of inmates in Uganda Prisons is brought by corruption in police and judiciary. Investigating officers connive with court officials and innocent Ugandans are remanded without proper court process. There is abuse of court processes, which is not checked by responsible authorities.