73 judicial officials have been reshuffled to improve service delivery.

Among those reshuffled include Registrars, Deputy Registrars, Assistant Registrars, Chief Magistrates and Magistrates grade one.

Jameson Karemani, the Judiciary Public Relations officer says that the change comes after it was discovered that some judicial areas lacked staff, some had more than the required number, but also some officials had shown laxity in doing their work.

According to a document signed by the Chief Registrar Sarah Langa Siu, the 73 officials include one Registrar, five Deputy Registrars, two Assistant Registrars, three Chief Magistrates, and 63 Magistrate Grade Ones.

“Majority of the magistrates have spent three years at a given station, so we had to move them. Many more judicial officers are due for transfer, but we shall have to do this in a phased manner because transfers have financial implications,” she said.

Susan Kanyange has been moved from the Commercial Division of the High Court to replace her Court of Appeal counterpart, Godfrey Opifeni who retires from service in January 2021. Also in the transfers, some Chief Magistrates have been assigned additional responsibilities of care taking High Court registries due to the limited number of Registrars to undertake the responsibilities.

“We are still grappling with the issue of numbers, especially in the Registrars and Chief Magistrates ranks, and that is the reason we have not made many changes there,” said the Chief Registrar.

Karemani says the transfers take effect January 1, 2021.

The Office of Directorate of Public  Prosecution (ODPP) has also transferred 102 officials over different reasons. They include 23 Chief State Attorneys (CSA) and Resident State Attorneys (RSA) respectively, seven Resident State Prosecutors (RSP), four Resident Senior State Attorneys (RSSA), one Resident Senior State Prosecutor (RSSP), 28 State Attorneys (SA), 13 State Prosecutors (SP) and three Senior State Attorneys (SSA).

According to a document signed by Jane Frances Abodo, the Director Public Prosecutions-DPP on December 18, 2020, the transfers are meant to improve service delivery in the directorate to ease challenges in preparation of cases for courts on time and also carry out other judicial duties as assigned.

The reshuffles take immediate effect but the prosecutors must report to their duty stations by February 1st, 2021.

Jinja city has had three officials transferred these are Jinja Regional Office Senior State Attorney (SSA) Grace Nantege Nabagala to Kabale as a promotion to Chief State Attorney (CSA), State Attorney Jamila Faidah, to Mukono and Doreen Elima a C State Attorney to Masindi. Others are Atim Jacquiline CSA Mukono regional office to CSA Mpigi, Happiness Ainebyona, CSA Nakawa regional Office to Mukono and Omia Patrick CSA Gulu to Arua.

The JLOS suffers from under staffing, case backlogs and inefficiency causing delays in administering justice and human rights in Uganda.