KAMPALA– The Chief Justice of Uganda ,Alfonse Owiny Dollo, has officially launched the operations of the Performance Enhancement Tool (PET) which was introduced to improve service Delivery within the the Judiciary.
At the launch held on Friday at Supreme Court building in Kampala, Dollo revealed that the PET tool is an effective tool which will be used to evaluate all Judicial officers in a fair and timely manner.
“The Judiciary is migrating from ancient Analogue system to the new digital system with a view of enhancing service delivery to the people of Uganda. The PET tool provides answer to section 18 of Administration of Judiciary Act 2020 which requires the Chief Justice to put in place the performance management system in an effort to improve transparency , Accountability and sound performance with in this institution.”
He also noted that they will not only consider statistics in establishing performance of the Judicial officers because of several factors related to their work.
“Because of qualitative nature of our work , the number of cases finished in appraisal period.its not a suitable yardstick to measure our performance, e.g one case in Anti corruption Division of High Court may require time and resources worth five cases in another circuit, yet a case in ICD may take a year to resolve, well as an ordinary session of High Court , a judge may resolve 40 cases in one session.”
Dollo, therefore advised Judicial officers to always focus on delivering judgement which serves justice to the people rather than passing decision which may be later quashed by Superior Courts.
Justice Mike Chibita, the Chairperson of performance management and awards committee, stated that PET was launched by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in 2019, during the 21st Annual Judges Conference and since then, they have held several consultations and training with several Judicial officers about the betterment of this system.
“The tool is an enabler of Excellence accountability and continuous improvement of all Judiciary staff, from Clerical officer to the Supreme Court Justice.
It is a ground breaking innovation, which will ensure that every officer’s work is measured, not only in output, but by fairness, integrity and how better they serve the public.” Remarked Chibita
He also commended, the Chief Justice , Judiciary top management and the performance management and awards committee for their unwavering commitment towards the transformation of Judiciary ‘s performance culture.
Maureen Kasande, the Undersecretary for the Judiciary, while representing Dr. Pius Bigirimana, the Permanent Secretary for the Judiciary, revealed that the PET tool will guide professional growth of Judicial officers, at the same time empower decision making process and improve on Judiciary’s confidence with in the members of the general public.
Joseph Senabulya , the Principal Information Management Officer in Judiciary, pointed out that the PET tool is user friendly consisting of five components namely; performance planning, performance monitoring, evaluation, rate and reporting
Development as well as capacity building module.
The PET can be accessed via
https://pet.judiciary.go.ug/
Through this tool, Judicial officers and other Judicial officers will be evaluated by their supervisors, peers, Juniors, as well as advocates and other members of the public.
The performance of Judicial officers will not only be based on the number of cases disposed off, but on a number of factors.
