A performance-based compensation scale for court workers is being proposed by Pius Bigirimana, the Permanent Secretary to the Judiciary.
According to Bigirimana, the idea is a component of reforms aimed at increasing the judicial officers’ productivity as they carry out their duties in administering justice.
At the Masaka High Court’s performance appraisal of the Electronic Cases Management Information Systems-ECCMIS, he made the revelation in his address to the judicial personnel.
According to Bigirimana, rewarding judges and magistrates based on their individual performance levels over a set period of time will help to combat staff tendencies toward laziness and pointless absences, which slow down the timely administration of justice in the nation.
He says that the approach has recently been benchmarked in the Ghanaian court system, where it is yielding superior outcomes in terms of staff performance and value for money, and that it is past time for it to be implemented in Uganda.
Once adopted, the performance-based payment would push Judges, Registrars, and Magistrates to be more proactive on the job, ridding the system of the unwelcome case backlog, according to Bigirimana.
He claims to be working on a concept paper, which he will bring to the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs and the relevant high management within the judiciary for discussion and potential consideration.
Following his recent discussions with Supreme Court Judge Ester Kisakye, whom she accuses of, among other things, underperformance, Bigirmana has proposed a new policy.
Bigirimana decided to withhold Judge Kisakye’s emoluments in October of last year, claiming that she had left her post without permission and was therefore failing to perform the tasks for which she was receiving public monies.
Kisakye disputes the accusations, claiming that she went overseas for her formal annual leave before taking sick leave to travel for surgery.
Judge Kisakye later attributed the problems to personal intrigue and filed lawsuits against Pius Bigirimana, the Permanent Secretary, and Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Ddollo, charging them with witch hunts.