Parliamentarians have pointed to injustice committed during court proceedings, urging firm action to address the problem.
They made the comments during a plenary sitting of the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday, June 9, which discussed and approved the evaluation of the Office of the Ombudsman’s 2018/2019 activity report by the Standing Committee on Political Affairs and Gender.
The Ombudsman ‘s Office assessed 1,091 cases that were committed in court rulings that people had submitted to it for injustice they claimed.
In 96 cases, the study found injustice, representing 8.8 per cent of the evaluated total cases. The Office requested retry of those cases from the Supreme Court.
It shows that 43 of those cases were reviewed by the Inspectorate of Courts and realized that 29 or 67.4% of them would be retried.
Later , the Supreme Court tried 23 of those cases and ruled that 20 or 86.9 per cent of them were miscarriage of justice.
“96 cases out of 1,091 assessed by the Office of the Ombudsman were submitted to the Supreme Court as they were found to be judged unfairly. That is about 8.8 percent of the evaluated cases. I find it a high number compared to the rebuilding of the justice sector which has been made so far,” MP Emmanuel Bugingo said, expressing the need to better understand the underlying reasons so as to solve the issue.
MP Théogène Munyangeyo said that the rate of cases with unfair verdicts is concerning.
“When a citizen files a case in court, they seek justice. When 8 percent of those people don’t get justice, it is a concern. Research should be carried out to identify the loopholes [and what causes them] so that we build a quality justice sector,” he said.
MP Furaha Emma Rubagumya, Chair of the Standing Committee on Political Affairs and Gender, said that cases that are tried in court but found to have been treated unfairly, and cases whose judgments are ineffectively enforced, are among the most common issues received by the Ombudsman ‘s Office.
“Those cases are also more recurrent in the reports of the Office of the Ombudsman,” she said.
Rubagumya said the concept of doing research on cases that have injustice is commendable; stressing that there should be ways to enforce it in line with resolving the issue.
Meanwhile, she said the Minister of Justice had explained to the Committee that strategies had been adopted to solve the problem, including strengthening court inspection, peer learning among judges, and referring to other cases tried by superior courts while making decisions on similar cases.
