LIRA – The Deputy Chief Justice, Richard Buteera, will be leading a team of Justices; Elizabeth Musoke, Hellen Obura and Remmy Kasule, in Lira for a Criminal Appeals session where 40 cases will be handled starting on Monday December 14.
The Justices will do day to day hearings for one week and then travel back to the headquarters for judgment writing.
This will be the first offsite session that the Deputy Chief Justice will be handling since he assumed office in August.
According to the Court’s Deputy Registrar, Ayebare Tumwebaze, out of the 40 Appeals, five appellants are serving life sentences which they want the court to overturn.
Murder tops the list of Appeals in this session with 20 cases followed by Defilement with 14 cases. The other case categorizations are Robbery with four appeals and Rape with two cases.
HW Ayebare explained that this will be the fourth session to be held outside Kampala this year. “We first held a session in Mbarara in June which was followed by another in Mbale in August and most recently there was one in Fort Portal in November and now we are in Lira.”
Adding that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Court has decided to hold scientific sessions where only the Justices and advocates are present in court while the appellants follow the proceedings by video conferencing facility.
He further explained that before the session can kick-off, the Justices and advocates will meet the appellants at Lira prison to inform them on how the scientific session will run as well as listen to and answer their queries.
This will be last session for the Court of Appeal to handle this year. It is anticipated that at the end of the year, the Court will have cleared 1,400 both Civil and Criminal case categories. Of these, about 700 are criminal matters.
This excellent results, are possible due to their Lordships utmost commitment in spite of the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.