2026 presidential petitions filing will be digital — Supreme Court
The ECCMIS, according to the Judiciary Principle Information Management Officer (PIMO), Joseph Sinabulya, is the safest and most secure tool in as far as holding court sessions of the presidential petitions.
Chief Justice Alfonse Owinyi Dollo (R) with Justice Prof. Andrew Khauka, the Executive Director Judicial Training Institute (JTI) at the training where participants questioned the effectiveness of the Electronic Court Case Management Information System (ECCMIS). (Credit: Jackie Nambogga)
Sinabulya said they integrated ECCMIS with the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), where all the digital payments reflect the case paid for. (Credit: Jackie Nambogga)
The Supreme Court says filing of presidential petitions will be digital.
The Electronic Court Case Management Information System (ECCMIS) will, for the first time in Uganda, be embraced by the Justices of the Supreme Court, the only judicial entity mandated with handling presidential petitions.
The ECCMIS, according to the Judiciary Principle Information Management Officer (PIMO), Joseph Sinabulya, is the safest and most secure tool in as far as holding court sessions of the presidential petitions.
This was revealed during the four-day high-level Supreme Court Justices training on electoral disputes management at the Nile Resort Hotel in Jinja city. It is during the training that Sinabulya demonstrated how the system works.
Organised by the Judicial Training Institute (JTI), the event, which ran from December 8, 2025, attracted justices of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s chambers, Uganda Law Society, the Electoral Commission, including IT experts drawn from Malawi, Kenya, India, and Zambia, among others.
Concerns from the judges
During the session, Justice Muzamiru Mutangula Kibeedi, one of the 11 justices of the Supreme Court, expressed fear of its reliability in case of an Internet shutdown.
“I am assuming if there is an internet shutdown, how prepared are we if it happened?” Kibeedi said.
Meanwhile, Monica Kalyegira Mugenyi’s concerns were on its safety against hackers and information leakages by some of their staff.
“How safe is this system? How do we guard against reckless information leakages and hackers?” she asked.
Sinabulya explained how this remains an effective tool in such situations, as it allows businesses to proceed even when there was no internet because the system was already hosted at the National Data Centre, which possesses a dedicated line.
Provided they were at the court premises, he said their computers wouldn’t require internet as they would be generating information from the server.
“With your computer at our station and the server that stores information, you don’t need internet; this is the connectivity we put in,” he assured.
However, he said it would be impossible for those outside the court stations as they wouldn’t be able to connect due to lack of a direct connection.
Safety and security
On safety and security, he confirmed to the session that one of the things they incorporated was to ensure that whoever logged into the system, their permission were role-based.
Upon permission, he said litigants who log into the system are restricted to viewing what is available for their particular case, away from accessing other files, as it had been with physical case filing.
He added that accessibility was well streamlined as permission for allocating files and fixing the hearing dates remains a reserve to the court registrars and magistrates alone.
“The questions being asked today are the same that were posed during a needs assessment design on how we would handle the system’s security,” Sinabulya said.
Whereas it would be the first time handling the presidential petitions using ECCMIS, he said the system had been in place since March 1, 2022.
It was first piloted in the Supreme Court before being introduced in selected entities around Kampala during criminal and civil sessions.
Before rolling it out, Sinabulya said they did a comprehensive system analysis and design from which informed them of the formation of a governance structure comprising a technical committee of judicial officers, judges, magistrates, registrars, including information and technology experts for proper use and protection.
With this system, one is capable of filing cases from wherever, rather than physically going to courts.
This, he says, saves transport costs, time wastage, and carrying loads of documents on pickups as applicants will only scan documents, upload them onto the system, which remains open 24/7.
“Even if courts don’t work on weekends, the system remains on; if you forgot filing something, it is always open, and once we return to the office, we open and find whatever was submitted,” he said.
Also, Sinabulya said they shifted from the physical cash payments at courts to electronic transactions like mobile money, VISA or Master cards after being abused with presentation of forged receipts that would look genuine from the bank, yet they were from ‘Nasser road’.
Accordingly, Sinabulya said they integrated ECCMIS with the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), where all the digital payments reflect the case paid for.
He said URA reflects one’s Payment Registration Number (PRN) and the amount, as both entities were able to communicate by sending a status to the court system.
“Ever since we encountered such, we closed down the issue of receiving receipts; all payments must be digital,” he said.