• Location: Kampala, Katakwi and Soroti
• Date of establishment: Kampala office opened in December 2007, Soroti (in Northeast) opened in January 2009, third office opened in neighbouring Katakwi in 2010
• Team: 2 expatriates, 15 collaborators, 4 intern lawyers and 5 collaborating lawyers in partnership with FIDA-Uganda (Association of Women Lawyers of Uganda)
• Objective: improve access to justice for vulnerable persons and contribute to the fight against impunity in Uganda
• Funding: Belgian Ministry of Cooperation and Development, Department for International Development (DFID), European Union

Context

A former British protectorate, Uganda gained its independence in 1962. Its reputation as the « Pearl of Africa » was destroyed in the 1970’s and 80’s as brutal dictatorships, military coups, and bloody civil war devastated the country. For the following two decades, the rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) headed by Joseph Kony fomented insecurity among the population of Acholiland in northern Uganda and in the northeastern part of the country.

Since 2008, the security situation in the country has stabilised, following peace talks between the LRA and the Ugandan authorities – even though a final peace accord was never signed.  The LRA, although it has apparently ceased to operate on Ugandan territory, remains a destabilising force on the regional level as it continues to carry out sporadic attacks in neighbouring countries. 

Impunity for international crimes, including those committed by the LRA leaders, continues to be a major concern.  The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Joseph Kony and his inner circle, but none of them has been arrested to date.  The Government of Uganda has adopted the Rome Statute, and took a potentially important step against impunity by creating the War Crimes Division of the High Court through an administrative decree issued in 2008.  After years of domestic impunity for atrocity crimes, months of preparations, and with substantial support from the international community, Uganda now ( early 2011) stands at the cusp of its first trial for crimes under international law. 

The Government has been accused of using security agencies such as police, army and quasi -militia groups to violently disrupt peaceful demonstrations and arrest several political agitators under unclear circumstances, this tendency was demonstrated in the lead-up to the February 2011 general elections in Uganda.

Because the justice system has shown some chronic systemic constraints that delayed and hampered access to justice and service delivery, the Justice Law and Order Sector or “JLOS” was created in 2001.  JLOS is a sector wide approach adopted by Government bringing together judicial actors and institutions in order to develop a common vision, policy framework, and unified objectives.  The sector has over the years prioritized land, family, criminal and commercial justice reform. 

However, serious breaches of human rights continue to be commonplace in Uganda, and much work remains to be done to ensure that the rule of law is respected throughout the country by all.  In spite of the commendable efforts of a variety of state and non-state justice actors, much of the population still has limited access to the formal justice system, due largely to geographic isolation and poverty as well as lack of awareness.  In a push to improve access to legal aid, in 2010 the Uganda Law Society began to enforce the regulation requiring practicing lawyers to provide at least 40 hours of pro bono services to indigent clients each year. 

In economic terms Uganda has enjoyed relatively solid growth since 1990, even though the majority of the population (totalling 32 million) has not benefited significantly.  Ranking 143rd (of 169) on the human development index of 2010, Uganda continues to face numerous serious economic challenges, especially related to geographic disparities (the North and West having long languished while the southern region has enjoyed significant growth) that tend to ignite political disputes.  Inflation rates have been high in recent years, and have already shown their potential to contribute to societal unrest in early 2011.  Oil revenues and taxes will become a larger source of government funding in the next few years. 

Programmes

1. Prevention of torture and the fight against impunity

This regional programme (jointly implemented from 2007-2009 in Rwanda, Burundi, DRC and Uganda) had three goals:

• to improve access to justice for persons in detention and victims of torture;
• to build capacities of key stakeholders;
• to promote a national and regional process of reflection on prevention and criminalization of torture of persons in preventive detention.

In Uganda, activities focused on reaching the victims and enabling them to bring their cases to the justice system, through visits to places of detention in order to raise awareness of detainees and prison personnel about prevention of torture; legal advice and representation (as needed) for victims of torture, via a network of Ugandan lawyers; and organisation of specific training for Ugandan lawyers and judges. 

In Uganda, the fight against impunity mostly takes form of advocating for implementation of the Rome Statute and promotion of the International Criminal Court system.  In 2011, under the auspices of a new ASF multi-country programme, activities in Uganda will focus on mobilizing networks of support among lawyers and civil society organizations committed to assisting victims of international crimes, building capacity on related subjects, forging links between Ugandan lawyers and others in East Africa around this theme, and monitoring the upcoming trials in the newly created War Crimes Division of the Ugandan High Court.

2. Combating illegal detention

As part of the regional torture programme, ASF sent lawyers into Ugandan prisons to provide free legal advice and representation to victims of torture.  In 2011, this type of assistance is being extended from its origins in Kampala and Central Region to encompass prisons in Soroti and Katakwi as well. 

In order to get a clear understanding of the situation, in 2010 ASF decided toundertake research on the problem of lengthy pre-trial detention in Uganda, focusing on the eight prisons which they had been visiting. A rigorous empirical analysis of over 2000 detainee records resulted in a report called "Presumed Innocent, Behind Bars: The Problem of Lengthy Pre-trial Detention in Uganda" (pdf).

Click here to read the article containing a summary of the report.

3. Improvement of access to justice for women and children as victims of violence and trafficking

In 2009, ASF established a branch office in the district of Soroti in northeastern Uganda, formerly a conflict zone, in collaboration with FIDA-U, the association of women lawyers of Uganda. The northeastern part of the country – especially the zone of Katakwi including the port of Karamoja – is unfortunately known as a hotbed of human trafficking (including minors), often victims of domestic labour and sexual exploitation. An ASF baseline study report completed in 2010 revealed that the area acts as a transit point for other parts of the country and neighbouring countries, and underlined the severity of the problem. (Child trafficking in Soroti, Katakwi and Kampala districts, Uganda, pdf) The goal of the ASF programme on child trafficking is to arouse widespread recognition of the issue and mobilise people to combat the problem, at both local and national levels through programme advocacy. 

In the second half of 2010, ASF expanded its services in two directions – to create a satellite office in the underserved Katakwi district near Soroti, and to expand our Kampala office legal services to cover domestic violence and child trafficking cases for victims in the Central Region of the country.   Activities in these locations have included:

• training of resource persons at community level, so that they can refer victims to the appropriate services;
• legal awareness raising among communities in our target areas, so that people get to know their rights and demand for enforcement;
• free legal consultations for the population, on a confidential basis, provided via mobile legal aid centres in remote villages as well as in the Soroti and Katakwi offices, by our collaborating Ugandan lawyers.
• handling of certain symbolic cases through to trial stage, as a means of promoting discussion of important issues and setting case law precedents;
• training of key justice system personnel (police, local magistrates/judges, lawyers, state attorneys/prosecutors), especially in relation to the implementation of new legislation on domestic violence and human trafficking.