Civil Justice
Commercial Justice and the Environment for Competitiveness
The Sector continues to facilitate an enabling environment for productivity, investment, and competitiveness by enhancing efficiency in settling commercial disputes through supporting an efficient legal framework, thereby reducing the ease of doing business. In the recently released Doing Business Report 2020, Uganda registered an improvement in the ease of doing business index to 60 from 56.94. The country’s index is still higher than the average for the Sub-Saharan African region, which is 51.61. The index of the legal framework’s efficiency remained at 3.8 and is expected to improve as levels of automation increase in the Case Management System. Uganda’s index ranks highest in the EAC region.
Access to commercial laws
The rule of law regulates economic activity, defines and affirms rights and obligations, therefore clarifying to investors the laws and institutional environment for doing business. An efficient and effective justice delivery system is fundamental for poverty reduction and inclusive growth. Critical legislation has been identified for immediate review and reform in line with commercial justice needs, for example, the Land Valuation Law and the UNRA Act. There are efforts to address the inaccessibility of commercial laws, the complexity of rules and procedures in commercial justice, the non-enforcement of Commercial laws, as well as the need to review legislation and promote business education.
Business Registries
Strategies were implemented to enhance the efficiency of all business registries, including measures to support integration and improve communication between the various registries. The average time taken to register a business improved to 3 hours, and the level of automation of business registries increased to 45%. The proportion of Ugandans with a National ID increased significantly from 45.2% to 64.3%. The Electronic Chattels Registry (Secured Moveable Properties Registry) was established and is fully operational.
However, there remains the challenge of ill-equipped registries, manual work processes in business registries, limited Staff capacity in e-registry, and limited Stakeholder awareness on the registration process. The sector must therefore strengthen commercial and civil registries, promoting the automation and integration of electronic registries to facilitate quick information sharing and collaboration.
Commercial and land dispute resolution processes and institutions
Interventions to revive the commercial court as a centre for excellence in dispute resolution and strengthen the capacity and operations of the other commercial justice institutions to provide fast and effective dispute resolution in all specialized areas, and in ADR, must be undertaken. There remains a limited rollout of mediation, minor claims procedure, and other new initiatives. The sector, too, must continue to review rules and guidelines that delay cases and enhance the efficacy of case management.