We advocate for criminal justice reforms to end arbitrary arrests, mass incarceration, long pre-trial detention, wrongful convictions, and promote prosecutorial and committal process reform.
The official number of inmates/prisoners Uganda’s prisons are designed to hold.
Approximate population of inmates in Uganda’s prisons, exceeding official capacity by about 259% resulting in an overcrowding rate of 360%.
Pre-trial/remand detainees constitute around 47.1% of the prison population, illustrating significant delays in the justice system.
Criminal justice is the system that deals with crimes and those involved. It includes the police who arrest suspects, the courts that decide if they are guilty, and prisons or programs that punish or help people reform and return to society safely.
Criminal justice reform involves advocating for changes to laws, policies, and practices to create a fairer, more effective justice system. The reform is needed to address problems like arbitrary arrests, spurious charges, overcrowded prisons, long pre-trial detentions, unfair trial practices, economic bias, and to improve fairness and rehabilitation.
We hope to achieve criminal justice reform through a combination of approaches – including legislative changes to reform laws related to bail and criminal procedures; advancing policies that emphasize alternatives to incarceration; law enforcement reforms to change policing practices and sanctioning of charges to reduce unnecessary arrests and improve accountability for arrests; and supporting actions aimed at enhancing court efficiency.
Chapter Four works to challenge arrests that are not based on proper legal grounds, evidence, or due process. We further work to end enforced disappearances and incommunicado detention.
Chapter Four is focused on defending fair trial processes to ensure all accused receive impartial hearings, legal representation, and timely justice. We advocate for judicial independence, accountability, and challenge military trials for civilians.
Chapter Four advocates for enhanced accountability and transparency in prosecutorial decision-making, aligning prosecution practices with constitutional fair trial rights, promoting timely prosecutions to reduce case backlogs, and challenging piecemeal sanctioning of charges.
Chapter Four works to prevent and correct miscarriages of justice by challenging forced confessions, disregard of due process, and plea bargain abuses. We advocate for practice reforms, and prosecutorial and judicial accountability to prevent convictions of innocent people.
Chapter Four is focused on ending long pre-trial detention in Uganda through challenging abuse of arrest and detention laws and advocating for timely judicial processes, promoting bail reforms, and strengthening legal aid for underrepresented groups.
Chapter Four advocates for reforms in the committal process in Uganda’s criminal justice system. We focus on challenging lengthy delays and centering the core importance of the process as a preliminary assessment of evidence to prevent weak cases from burdening higher courts, uphold the accused’s right to fair trial preparation, and clarify issues early.
Uganda’s criminal justice system faces several challenges, including severe case backlogs and prolonged pre-trial detention. The committal process is skewed, and prisons are overcrowded by over 350%, with remand inmates constituting nearly half the population. Incidents of arbitrary arrests, detention beyond 48 hours, enforced disappearances, incommunicado detention, and spurious charges are common. Institutional limitations and weaknesses, inefficient investigations, corruption, clampdown on the right to bail, flaws in plea bargaining, and limited access to legal aid hinder speedy, fair justice. These issues threaten fair trials, due process, personal liberty, public trust in the rule of law, and increase the risk of miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions.
