The Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law (HiiL) in collaboration with JLOS used an innovative methodology to study the justice needs of the people in Uganda during the Covid-19 Pandemic. An online survey questionnaire was distributed twice: in April-June 2021 and October-December 2021. Confirming the results of previous research, the studies found that almost every respondent had to deal with a legal problem in the previous year.

The sample is non-representative but provides interesting and actionable insights into the demand for justice in Uganda during the pandemic. Younger, better educated, urban residents face mostly debt issues, employment problems, family problems, and disagreements with neighbors. Older, less educated, rural residents face most often land problems, domestic violence, and crimes.

The relationship between COVID-19 and the need for justice is stronger among the younger sample. The study also shows that many justice problems that were not resolved in the first wave were resolved in the second. However, it is concerning that about 30% of the issues which were ongoing in the first wave are still in a process of resolution.

Check out for more results in the first and the second eJNS report.

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Justice Needs and Satisfaction in Uganda (August 2021)

Justice Needs and Satisfaction in Uganda (March 2022)

Source: HiiL

KAMPALA - The Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law (HiiL) in partnership with the Justice, Law and Order Sector (JLOS) is set to hold a justice innovation product launch on 5^th November 2020 via a series of webinars and online events.

Uganda is one of the most active countries regarding justice innovation and has a great amount of successes worth sharing. These successes will be supported by new data and research on formal and informal justice delivery in Uganda, which will also be presented during this event.

A second nationwide Justice Needs and Satisfaction Survey in Uganda was conducted in 2019. The event will feature these research findings of problems, resolution and people-centred impacts, as well as findings on the three most pressing problems: Land, Crime and Divorce and Separation.

Also lined for launch is a new integration of survey data with administrative and social media sources, which offers one of the most uniquely comprehensive understanding of justice from multiple perspectives. Stories from thousands of people map out the complex navigation of how people seek to get justice.

This event is a kick off of a series of webinars intended to increase capacity across the country to measure justice, visualize justice data and use it for project proposals and programming.  

Interested in participating in this event? Please REGISTER in advance. Joining the online event is free.

Published: October 30, 2020

The Hague Institute for the innovation of Law (HiiL) is offering a free 6-week intensive training course for the most promising entrepreneurs and innovation teams based in Kampala. "We are looking for ideas and solutions that address access to justice challenges in Uganda, in particular, those addressing Land Justice. Submissions from institutions of the Justice, Law and Order Sector and legal fraternity are highly encouraged", a statement from HiiL reads.

During this training, participants will access to HiiL’s international justice innovation network; participate in tailored mentorship sessions with experts; and upon completion acquire a certificate to prove professional development.

Successful participants stand a chance of being shortlisted for HiiL’s Innovating Justice Challenge 2019, incl. funding and acceleration.

Training dates: 17th June - 19th July 2019. Application deadline: 7th June 2019. Those interested can send their CV, description of idea/motivation (200 words) and team composition (if any) by email to racheal.ampaire[at]hiil.org (Subject: Justice innovation fast track training).

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Published: May 28, 2019

The Justice, Law and Order Sector (JLOS) has been at the forefront of reforming Uganda’s justice system since its inception in 1999. Nineteen years on, the achievements, milestones and success stories are visible, challenges notwithstanding. From reforms in commercial justice to the good legislative and policy environment, unprecedented infrastructure development (construction of numerous justice centres across the country) to award-winning innovations and initiatives (small claims procedures, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, sentencing guidelines, plea bargaining, etc,) – the sector is on course in its bid to create a pro-people justice system in Uganda.

It is, however, important to further examine how “pro-people” the workings of the sector are. Pro-people in this context is that JLOS has over the years strived to champion the cause of the vulnerable, the poor and generally those who are disadvantaged in different ways – financially, socially and even physically.

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NOTE: This article was originally published in the Daily Monitor on 17th January 2019.

By Edgar Kuhimbisa / Published: January 17, 2019 

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This HiiL report follows the outcomes of nation-wide justice needs and satisfaction survey that HiiL conducted in Uganda in 2016. That report showed that justice problems relating to the family rank constitute the most prevalent justice problem for Ugandans. More than 1 million serious family justice problems occur in Uganda every year: most of them are domestic violence and separation related. As in other countries, our survey shows high impact of family problems on people’s lives. Impact on women is more severe than impact on men.

The Family Justice report contains a deeper understanding of the family-related problems that Ugandans face. This includes the processes people follow to solve these problems and the outcomes that they obtain when attempting to get a solution. It sets out the foundation for an agenda for innovation that builds on the needs of users of family justice processes.

Instead of proposing new legislation or financing additional services, the report outlines terms of reference and user stories: what should the family justice process achieve for women, men, girls and boys? What do justice providers from the informal or formal sector need, in order to help solve family problems more effectively?

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By Nathalie Dijkman

For the second time HiiL has held an Innovating Justice Boostcamp in Kampala, which took place on 7 and 8 September this year. The Boostcamp was part of the selection process for the winners of the Innovating Justice Challenge 2017, a global challenge that seeks to find innovative solutions preventing or resolving the most pressing justice needs of people around the world. 

This year, from over 60 applications that came in from Uganda, 10 were shortlisted by HiiL to take part in the Boostcamp, and 5 of those ended up pitching in front of a jury to stand to win the Challenge. The shortlisted innovations are tackling a variety of justice needs, including gender based violence, land disputes, forced migration and employment issues. 

During the first day of the Boostcamp, the group of innovators took off on a bus early morning to Entebbe to spend a full training day in retreat-setting guided by a group of expert mentors. The programme included learning about Lean Start-up methodology, filling out a Social Business Canvas, designing their first experiments on a Javelin Board and practicing their 4-minute pitch. In the afternoon the teams, recognized by bright ‘Justler’ t-shirts, went off into a small town off Entebbe Road to conduct interviews with local citizens, testing their main assumptions. As one of the innovators said: “We learned a lot from listening to people who are meant to use our service. (…) From all the people we talked to, everyone has had a problem with land. They didn’t know where to go and the question then is whether our service can make a real difference.” 

The next day, on 8 September, the wider public and key stakeholders were invited to the Boostcamp to meet the innovators and exchange ideas on justice innovation. This event was held at Africana Hotel during the Legal Aid Innovations Conference, which was co-organized by BarefootLaw, LASPNET, DGF and HiiL. The morning of the event held speeches by a.o. Chief Justice Katureebe, the Ambassador of the Embassy of the Netherlands and the Chair of the Judiciary ICT Committee Justice Kiryabwire. Up to 300 people came to this inaugural conference to learn about the most innovative justice solutions currently available in Uganda and how to improve justice through technology and citizen-centred solutions. HiiL’s Justice Needs in Uganda report, which was launched in April 2016, was mentioned by all stakeholders as a cornerstone of the evidence currently available on the most pressing justice needs in Uganda. 

The five innovations selected by HiiL which were pitching in front of the jury in the afternoon included: E-Migrate (an easy and safe travel agency for migrants and refugees), Evidence and Methods Lab (smart infographics of complex justice problems to promote accountability), Muslim Centre for Justice e-Law App (a legal sms service for Muslim minorities and users of the Qhuadi court), Land Title Search App (a smartphone land title verification tool) and Weetase (a voice-based mobile app to monitor victims of (forced) migration and trafficking). 

The 5-headed Jury, chaired by Lucy Ladira, the lead Advisor on Criminal Justice at the JLOS Secretariat, concluded during the public Jury Debrief that they were impressed by the pitches and solutions of all teams, although there was definitely a need for them to research their problem further. The Evidence and Methods Lab was announced as winner by HiiL’s alumni (Lawyers4Farmers and Justice2People), and special mentions went out to Weetase and the Muslim Centre for Justice (strongest impact) as well as the Land Title App (best presentation). 

This month HiiL is holding similar Boostcamps in Accra (Ghana), Nairobi (Kenya), Johannesburg (South Africa), The Hague (Netherlands) and Kyiv (Ukraine). At each event, innovators are trained and winners are selected by a local jury. All winners of the Boostcamps win 5000 EUR in seed funding and are invited to take part in HiiL’s Accelerator programme. In total, 12 teams are also invited to come to The Hague in December to take part in the Justice Entrepreneurship School and present their innovations in the Peace Palace. 

Nathalie Dijkman is the Justice Sector Advisor (East Africa Program Coordinator) at HiiL

Published: September 19, 2017

The Judiciary has developed a robust Information and Communications Technology (ICT) strategy. It is expected that within the next three years, an e-justice will have been operationalized.

Chief Justice Bart Katureebe revealed this on Friday while inaugurating the Legal Aid innovations conference at Hotel Africana in Kampala.

Katureebe said it was imperative that the Government facilitates the development of a legal aid policy and law, adopts a-state-funded legal aid scheme and strengthens community-led initiatives, such as local council courts and a paralegal advisory system that would fill the existing gaps in legal aid service provision.

He, however, regretted that the system was still struggling to eliminate case backlog, which he said was one of the greatest systemic barriers against access to justice.

“The sector is also still grappling with the fact that most Justice Law and Orders Sector (JLOS) institutions remain largely urban-based and unavailable in 18% of the district, while 41% of the institutions operate from premises not fit for the purpose.

The justice system is further faced with many other constraints in service delivery that include lack of modern ICT equipment and reliance on manual processes, low budgetary support to sector institutions, limited legal reference materials, poor remuneration and conditions of service for judicial officers and other staff within the institutions and limited knowledge of the law and human rights by the majority population, among others,” Katureebe further lamented.

He said a report by The Hague Institute for Innovation and the Law (HIIL) on Justice Needs 2016 also revealed that 88% of Ugandans experienced difficulty in accessing justice in the past four years, with land and family cases being rated as the top two most critical disputes.

Katureebe noted that only 18% of the Ugandan population receives legal aid services annually, which leaves the majority, especially the poor and most vulnerable, unable to access justice.      

Katureebe said that such a situation leads to frustration sometimes, culminating into criminality manifesting in acts such as suicide and use of extra judicial means like mob justice, which creates insecurity to the population.

He noted that there is an acute shortage of legal practitioners in rural areas and that the legal aid service providers currently available provide project-led interventions, which are not sustainable. 

“Our focus should be on what work for the ordinary persons who form the majority of our population. Once we develop a simple, user-friendly and cost effective justice system, the majority will be satisfied and the rates of satisfaction will hit through the roof, which will have unprecedented impact on the public confidence in the administration of justice in this country,” Katureebe stressed.

Source: New Vision / Published: September 11, 2017

The Legal Aid Service Providers Network (LASPNET) in collaboration with Barefoot Law and with support from the Democratic Governance Facility will this week hold the first ever legal aid innovations conference from September 7-8, 2017 at Hotel Africana. The conference is aimed at providing a platform to showcase innovations in legal aid service provision. The Hon. Chief Justice is expected to officially open the conference.

The innovations conference will also provide space to network and share good practices in legal aid service delivery especially low cost initiatives that increase efficiency in accessing justice. 

The Hill-Innovating Justice boostcamp will also be part of the conference on day 2 where the 2017 semi-finalists for the HiLL Challenge will be selected.

For more information visit / to register, visit the conference website: www.laicon.org. Follow the 2017 Legal Aid Innovations Conference on twitter via hashtag #LAICON2017

By Edgar Kuhimbisa | Published: September 4, 2017

HiiL is delighted to invite the general public to the Innovating Justice Boostcamp taking place in Kampala on the 8th of September 2017! This event will highlight this year’s semi-finalists in the Innovating Justice Challenge 2017. The pitch fest will take place during the Legal Aid Innovations Conference, which is organized in partnership with BarefootLaw, LASPNET and DGF.

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In May 2017, HiiL launched their latest Justice Data Report on Family Justice in Uganda. This was done at a workshop hosted by the Swedish Embassy in Kampala. The launch was accompanied by the attendance of representatives from the key actors from the justice system who are concerned with family justice, including the JLOS secretariat, the National Police, the Judiciary, DGF, LASPNET, IDLO and the Law Reform Commission.

The full report is now freely available and can be downloaded in English HERE: Family Justice in Uganda

This latest HiiL report follows the outcomes of nation-wide justice needs and satisfaction survey that HiiL conducted in Uganda in 2016. That report showed that justice problems relating to the family rank constitute the most prevalent justice problem for Ugandans. More than 1 million serious family justice problems occur in Uganda every year: most of them are domestic violence and separation related. As in other countries, this survey shows high impact of family problems on people’s lives. Impact on women is more severe than impact on men.

The Family Justice report contains a deeper understanding of the family-related problems that Ugandans face. This includes the processes people follow to solve these problems and the outcomes that they obtain when attempting to get a solution. It sets out the foundation for an agenda for innovation that builds on the needs of users of family justice processes.

Instead of proposing new legislation or financing additional services, the report outlines terms of reference and user stories: what should the family justice process achieve for women, men, girls and boys? What do justice providers from the informal or formal sector need, in order to help solve family problems more effectively?

The launching workshop concluded that the results of this study should become building blocks for an action plan to improve the treatment of family disputes in Uganda and first steps were taken to make this concrete.

By Nathalie Djikman, HiiL Justice Sector Advisor. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. / Published: June 19 2017