Parliament has passed the Judicature Amendment Bill, increasing the number of justices of the Court of Appeal from 15 to 35.
The house also rejected a proposal by government to increase the number of Supreme Court justices from 11 to 21.Government had proposed that that the number of Court of appeal justices be increased from 15to 56 but the members rejected the proposal.
The minister of justice and constitutional affairs Nobert Mao who presented the Ammendment said the intention to increase the judges was intended to reduce on the case backlog at the two courts inorder to improve service delivery.
However the chairperson of the Committee on Legal and Parliamentary Affairs,Robinah Rwakojo argued that the increase in the number of judges is not necessarily the cure for effective delivery, since case backlog is not caused, by lack of justices of the Supreme Court, but by other matters including inefficiency, poor case management and the Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court which allows every matter to be referred to the Supreme Court.
Rwakojo also said that the cost of the people such as body guards, research officers,house helps and others who help the justices of the Supreme Court to deliver their mandate were not considered yet they will burden the tax payers.
