LIEN Stakeholders' Meeting Feb 19th 2010

LIEN Uganda Stakeholders Meeting

In the Office of Chief Justice, Kampala, Uganda

14.30 – 16.30 Feb 19^th 2010

The meeting was chaired by the Hon. Chief Justice and attended by: Justice GM Okello (Chairman, Judiciary Integrity Committee), Bruce Kyerere (President, Uganda Law Society), Sylvia Mukasa (Director ULS), Grace Babihunga (ULS), Debora Rogo (International Law Institute, Africa), Achieng Miriam Uganda Christian University (UCU) and Tulibagenyi Daniel (UCU), Brian Dennison (Lecturer, Legal Clinic Education) (UCU), Patrick Rafolisy (Tiri), Dr. Petter Langseth (Tiri consultant), Ken Otieno (Tiri)

Invited but unable to attend were: Flavia Senoga Anglin (Chief Registrar of the High Court), the Chief Magistrate Iganga District, and Livingstone Sewanyana (Executive Director, Foundation for Human Rights Initiative).

MINUTES FROM THE MEETING

A. Opening remarks by Chief Justice

In his opening remarks, the Chief Justice (CJ) welcomed the project as an important pillar for building integrity within national institutions, in particular the judiciary.

The CJ shared with the meeting how he had been a member of the international Judicial Integrity Group (JIG) responsible for developing the Bangalore Principles for Judicial Integrity and emphasized the importance of empowering key partners to disseminate and help enforce these key principles.

He is excited to experience the power of a Citizen or Court User Charter to empower and help the court users and the citizens better understandtheir rights and obligations. The CJ welcomed a pilot testing of the Citizen Charter in the two LIEN pilot regions (Mukono and Iganga) involving the judiciary, court users/the public, UCU law students and the other LIEN partners in the process.

He noted that there has been a gap between ethics and integrity training needed by lawyers and the training offered and he was confident that the Tiri Legal Integrity Education Network pilot programme planned for Uganda would greatly contribute towards filling this gap. He also observed that public empowerment through sensitization and education was also necessary to complement efforts to reform the integrity of the courts and should be a complementary factor in the programme.

He welcomed the innovative approach of targeting law students to improve the integrity of the judiciary and he welcomed the involvement of the UCU which he saw as a very credible and partner.

He also emphasized the importance of establishing a baseline against which the impact of the pilot program could be monitored. He is open to the application of action learning allowing the stakeholders to try new approaches and use the regular monitoring to identify what initiatives are increasing the public trust in the courts and what does not.

In his remark, Patrick Rafolisy gave a brief overview of Tiri and its new office in Africa. He outlined Tiri’s approach towards building the integrity of institutions as a contributing factor to improved service delivery to the people and achievement of development outcomes including improved public trust in the court due to improved enforcement of rule of law and code of conducts in the judiciary and the local council courts.

Bruce Kyerere, the President of the Uganda Law Society (USL) termed the project as timely and pledged their support to it. He noted that it would fit well with and complement the Partnership for Transparency Programme that ULS has been involved with the objective to increase the transparency and accountability in the legal practice in Uganda.

Debora Rogo from International Law Institute (ILI) noted that in partnership with Tiri, they are working with Local Council Courts (LCCs) under Tiri’s Pro-Poor Integrity (PPI) project since this is the first line of accessing justice for the community and especially the poor. She saw a great potential for Uganda Christian University (UCU) students to help in the process of developing the curriculum and proper training material for ethics and integrity training for Local Council Courts (LCC) and magistrate court and also participating in the actual trainings. This collaboration would also contribute to improving action learning by students

B. Expectations to the LIEN Uganda Pilot Program

B.1. Chief Justice, Hon Ben Odoki expects that:

1. The LIEN programme would help build an improved link between the judiciary, the courts, the court users and the law students
2. UCU would introduce new values based on integrity and ethics in law students and through this project, create a body of responsible law students who would come into the legal profession with a new outlook and thereby help to restore the public trust in the legal profession.
3. the public will have a role to play in the project and that they will be made to understand that they are an important pillar to building the integrity of public institutions by demanding increased integrity, improved service delivery and improved public confidence in the profession. He hopes that the project will make the public understand the important link between increased integrity and improved service delivery.
4. Law students would play a key role in educating and sensitizing the public on issues of ethics and integrity and create a “bottom-up” demand for public institutions to be more to the public when it comes improved professionalisms and service delivery to the public.
5. Courts in the pilot districts will use their offices to educate the public and serve as role models for other public servants who are not in the pilot project yet

B.2. Patrick Rafolisy from Tiri expects that:

1. National partners will take full ownership of the project and steer it towards success improving public trust in the courts and society ruled by rule of law . Tiri’s role is only to facilitate and the key partners should will take the lead.
2. The LIEN pilot in Uganda becomes a flagship for the international LIEN project and is used as a point of reference by other countries in the legal integrity education project.

B.3. Brian Dennison from UCU expects that:

1. That clinical students get an opportunity through this project to go out to the community and get exposure to the key issues as seen by the public, the perceived public trust in the courts and the key challenges facing the courts.
2. A formal curriculum on integrity and ethics for an ethics education programme for Uganda is developed out of this project
3. That the project contributes to a tipping point in law practice in Uganda where ethics and integrity become leading principles that guide the profession

B.4. Bruce Kyerere Uganda Law Society expects that:

1. Noting that complaints against lawyers has been on the rise, the President of ULS, who also sits in the Law Council, hoped that the project would help restoring the credibility of the legal profession. He hoped that it could be possible to widen the project beyond UCU into all universities that teach law including the Law Development Center.
2. The project contributes to the Continuing Legal Education Programme which is aimed at providing ongoing development of practicing lawyers.

B.5. Hon Justice Okello, Judicial Integrity Committee

1. He noted the importance for members of public to know what the judiciary was doing to help in the efforts of building the integrity of the courts. He hoped that the project would involve court users and members of the community and lauded it as a very innovative approach and hoped that it will boost the public perception on the integrity of the courts

C. Possible activities under the project

Many of the activities listed below have already been table by some of the partners during the meetings with Tiri this week. The establishment of the LIEN Uganda Steering Committee is supposed to help the coordination and implementation of these important initiatives. However, the different partners were encouraged by the meeting to continue with their planning and implementation of their initiatives and should not wait for approval by the steering committee to proceed. They are, however, expected to keep the other partners informed about their activities and where necessary, involve other key partners in their programs.

Most of the activities listed below will need the coordination with and support of the LIEN Uganda Partners as indicated below.

C.1. Projects Initiated by UCU (Tiri, Judiciary, FHRI, ULS)

1. Community sensitization and education on: (i) court users and/or citizens rights, roles and privileges, (ii) provisions of the law, integrity and professionalism, (iii) Citizen or Court user charters etc.
2. Internship and attachment of graduate students to legal aid projects to provide opportunity for exposure.
3. Students could contribute to the integrity page of the ULS magazine and other publications
4. Development and dissemination of information education and communication materials in local languages to various stakeholders (brochures, pamphlets, web pages etc.)
5. Radio and TV talk shows in local languages about the law
6. Attachment of law students to some of the pilot courts for assistance and exposure
7. UCU to hold and annual lunch with Alumni members where lawyers are given awards for demonstrating and maintaining integrity in practice
8. Translation of relevant materials into local languages
9. Students to run a law journal on integrity
1. Law students to participate in court monitoring together with civil society organisation, e.g with the Foundation of Human Rights Initiatives (FHRI)
10. Law Council using student interns to help manage the case load
11. UCU to explore the establishment of a project secretariat staffed by Legal Clinic students from the Law School financed by Tiri

C.2. Projects Initiated by the Judiciary (Tiri, UCU, LDC, ULC, ILI)

1. Training of court officials on integrity, professionalism, ethics
2. Judiciary, supported by law students, to organize “Open court days” where the court staff meets and educates the public on court procedures and processes
3. Attachment of law students to some of the pilot courts for assistance and exposure and sensitization.
4. Publicizing key disciplinary cases as a deterrent for lack of integrity in law practice. Work with Law Students to develop the court judgments into case teaching case studies
5. Law Council using student interns to help manage their case load

C.3. Projects Initiated by Uganda Law Society (Tiri, UCU)

1. Mentorship programme for young lawyers
2. Training of lawyers to update them on evolving ethical standards
3. Development and dissemination of information education and communication materials to various stakeholders (brochures, pamphlets etc.)
4. Open court days where the courts meets and educates the public on court procedures and processes
5. Attachment of law students to some of the pilot courts for exposure

C.4. Civil Society represented by credible NGOs (ULC, Tiri )

1. Develop and conduct an assessment to establish a baseline against which the impact of the pilot projects can be measured.

D. What is missing?

1. Innovative mechanisms for arresting the practice of paying bribes to get services from the courts e.g paying court clerk to access files
2. Identification of all stakeholders – it was proposed that several other key stakeholders may need to be included among them the Judiciary Study Institute; regulators of the law profession like the Law Council and the Judiciary Service Commission; court user committees; Inspectorate of the Courts; the Directorate of Ethics, Ministry of education Curriculum Development Center; the National Council for Higher Education etc

E. Uganda LIEN Steering Committee (ULSC)

E.1. The need for a LIEN Uganda Project Secretariat

Before discussion on the committee, the CJ wanted to know whether the project had a Secretariat or a focal point of reference. It was agreed generally that it may be necessary to establish some form of Secretariat or coordination unit separate from the day to day running of the various partners’ institutions for purposes of close follow up. After debate it was agreed that the project could:

- use committed law students from UCU Integrity Clinic as an innovative way to giving them exposure

- UCU would identify prospective students for this purpose and Tiri might look for funding to pay a part-time fee to the selected students

- The need for a LIEN Project Secretariat will be re-visited at the conclusion of the first pilot phase has been made and the planning of the second pilot phase

E.2. LIEN Uganda Steering Committee

1. Need for a LIEN Uganda Steering Committee

It was agreed by the meeting that the project needed a Steering Committee which should headed by a senior Judge.

It was also agreed that the Steering committee should meet twice a year and that the first meeting of the Steering Committee was slated for May 2010.

2. Members of the Steering Committee.

The idea of a steering committee was accepted and a proposed list of members drawn up comprising representatives of all partners present at the meeting:

• Uganda Law Society (ULS)
• International Law Institute (ILI)
• Uganda Christian University Law School (UCU)
• Key Judicial Institutions to sit on the Steering Committee:

• Chief Magistrate Iganga,

• Chief Registrar of the High Court,
• Law Council,
• Judicial Studies Institute
• FHRI

3. Chairman of the Steering Committee

The chairman of the ULC recommended Justice Okello as the chairperson and this was endorsed by the meeting.

The Chief Justice offered to act as the Prefect to ensure that the Committee met and carried out its mandate.

F. Closing remarks by the CJ

In his closing, the CJ gave a vote of thanks to all partners for attending the meeting which he described as very fruitful.

He felt that the project as very timely as the integrity of the legal profession was facing very low confidence from the public.

He pointed out that the notion of addressing legal integrity in education, was a very creative concept and he personally was very enthusiastic about pilot testing this idea in Uganda.

He emphasized the need for educating the public on their rights and obligations is as key pre-condition for the public to come forward and demand services according to their rights. He also felt that the public had to be empowered before they would be willing to bring complaints which would help expose weaknesses in the public institutions hence contribute towards restoring their integrity and as an outcome improve public trust in the courts.

He encouraged all partners to put their full efforts and resources into the project to make it a success. He pledged his full support and hoped that the pilot would succeed and roll out to other parts of the country.

In closing, the CJ hoped that the LIEN Uganda project would be formally launched to give it the necessary publicity and support and at the same time create awareness amongst the population.

LEGAL INTEGRITY EDUCATION NETWORK (LIEN)

Project in Uganda

AGENDA,

2.30 Friday Feb 19^th 2010,

1. All Participants to introduce themselves (10 min)

2. Presentation by Key Partners in the LIEN Uganda Project

1. Hon Chief Justice Ben Odoki to present his expectations to the LIEN Project (5 Min)

2. Patrick Rafolisy, Tiri Project Leader to present the Legal Integrity Education Network Idea (5 min)
3. Brian Dennison, Professor of Clinical Education at the UCU to present their role as an implementing partner (5 min)
4. The Representative from Uganda Law Society to present their possible role as a supporting partner (5 min)
5. The Chief Registrar Hon Flavia Senoga Anglin to present their role as an implementing partner (5 min)
6. Pro-Poor Integrity Partner to present their role as a support partner (5 min)
7. Chief Magistrate in charge of the Pilot Court in Iganga to present his expectations to project (5 min)

3. Getting Real; what is missing?

Brainstorming (15 min)

4. Agree on the role and composition of a LIEN Uganda Steering Committee (5 min)

5. Next Steps ?

1. Tiri to distribute the minutes of the meeting to participants and all key partners

2. Participants to comment on an improve the draft LIEN Uganda Strategy Document
3. Steering Committee to finalize the LIEN Uganda Strategy

6. Closing by the Hon Chief Justice