The Ombudsman, Madeleine Nirere has said that her Office found injustice in 12.2 percent of the cases that were tried in courts but were submitted to her office by citizens over unfair judgments. It requested the Supreme Court to retry those cases.

This is one of the findings of the Ombudsman annual report for the financial year 2020-2021 that was presented to both Chambers of Parliament on Wednesday, October 20, 2021.

The rate of injustice identified by the Ombudsman in the received court cases was higher – by 2.3 percentage points  – compared to last year when the level of injustice was at 9.9 percent. 

Overall, for the cases related to court judgment, in 2020/2021, out of 361 files submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman for review on the grounds of injustice, it analysed 343 (95 per cent), while 18 (5 per cent) are yet to be looked into. Of the 343 analysed files, 42 were considered to have been unfairly judged, representing 12.2 per cent. 

In the previous financial year, out of 465 files taken to the Office of the Ombudsman’s office requesting fresh trials for the reasons of unfair judgement, it decided that only 46 of them – representing 9.9 percent – deserved retrial.

MP Aimée Sandrine Uwambaje wondered why some cases in which the Ombudsman found injustice are considered not unfairly judged by the Inspectorate of Courts, describing it as inconsistency in the institutions responsible for delivery of justice.

"Can’t this make these institutions lose credibility? Why such inconsistency? Aren’t those cases analysed by legal experts, and in compliance with the related legislation to establish whether there is injustice or not,” she wondered.

But Nirere replied that the responsibility to retry cases is in the hands of the Supreme Court, adding that what the Office of the Ombudsman does is to request the retrial which is then considered by the Court.

"I can say there is no contradiction between the decisions we take because, though we are complementary, every organ assumes its responsibilities in its capacity,” she said, indicating that the responsibility of the Office of the Ombudsman is to see if there is injustice in a given case and request the Supreme Court to retry.

"When the Supreme Court finds injustice in a case, they inform the affected person [people] about the retrial. If there is no injustice, it writes to us [the Office of the Ombudsman] about it,” she said, adding that the latter also informs the people in question about the result of the former’s assessment, accordingly.

A drop in the total number of cases

It is to note that the number of cases that citizens submit to the Ombudsman for review over alleged injustice in their judgments has been declining.

Indeed, the 2018/2019 activity report of the Office of the Ombudsman indicated that it assessed 1,091 cases in this regard. However, the report found injustice in 96 cases, representing 8.8 per cent of the total cases evaluated.

Commenting on the drop in cases received by her Office, Nirere said that it mainly results from the law of 2018 determining the jurisdiction of courts, which provides that the Presidents of Courts also have the powers to analyse injustice issues in cases in which corruption is detected, some evidence was disregarded.

In its article 53, this law provides that the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over applications for review of judgements rendered at last instance on grounds of their being vitiated by injustice upon approval by its President.

However, it also stipulates that the president of the Supreme Court may designate another court higher than the one that heard the case at the last instance if he/she considers that the case may not constitute a precedent for other courts.

For other cases vitiated by the injustice that are identified by presidents of other courts, the president of the Supreme Court designates courts higher than the ones having heard the case at the last instance, to review such cases on grounds of their being vitiated by injustice.