Busingye looks to improve access to local justice units

Minister Busingye.

State’s legal experts deployed in all districts should do their job diligently with view to help minimize cases that end up in courts of law, Justice minister Johnston Busingye has said.

The minister was addressing members of what is known as Access to Justice or Maison d’Acess a la Justice (known by its French acronym, MAJ), at the ministry head office in Kimihurura on Friday.

Each of the country’s 30 districts has a MAJ office with three lawyers.

These offices provide free legal services to the most vulnerable of society, train community-based mediators, and serve as a link between the Ministry of Justice and Local Governments in legal matters, among others.


Significant social impact 

Busingye pointed out that equitable, functioning and accessible justice is crucial to combating poverty, promote good governance and the rule of law and that the Access to Justice offices had since contributed to reducing cases that are referred to court.

In justifying the impact of the access to justice offices, the minister said the offices have had a significant social impact mostly in handling and solving domestic wrangles and that about 70 per cent of the cases that would have gone to courts are solved by the access to justice bureaus.

“There is a lot that has been done by this unit of access to justice offices but they can still do better, we now need to empower them to make their impact more visible,” said Busingye.

Busingye looks to improve access to local justice units