Judiciary mandates Acholi chiefs to carry out alternative dispute resolution
As part of the preparations, the chiefs were trained, given certificates and provided with registry books to record the disputes they handle. The Judiciary will monitor their progress after three months.
Acholi chiefs and their premiers attending a meeting on AJS at Acholi cultural institution. (Photo by Jackson Kitara)
________________
The Judiciary has mandated Acholi cultural chiefs to carry out alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to resolve community conflicts and civil disputes through traditional mediation, reconciliation and restorative justice rather than the formal court system.
The move follows the introduction of the Alternative Justice System (AJS) as a pilot initiative aimed at empowering people to resolve disputes within their communities without necessarily going through court litigation.
As part of the preparations, the chiefs were trained, given certificates and provided with registry books to record the disputes they handle. The Judiciary will monitor their progress after three months.
While meeting all 57 chiefs and their premiers from the 57 chiefdoms in Acholi at the Acholi Cultural Institution on August 22, 2026, Justice Phillip Odoki, the head and resident judge of the Gulu High Court Circuit, warned the chiefs against handling capital offences while carrying out ADR.
He noted that involving Acholi cultural chiefs in the AJS would reduce the number of cases filed in court and help address the court backlog, as many disputes would be resolved within the respective chiefdoms.
Odoki said, “We believe the AJS will resolve more cases, building on the successes of the court-accredited mediation, because the cultural leaders can register cases in their areas and the cases will be resolved without necessarily coming to the court”.
He explained that AJS is very important because before colonialism, traditional leaders were resolving all sorts of disputes, but with the advent of colonialism, Uganda adopted the British legal system, which is heavily adversarial and introduced technical laws that are complicated and expensive, contributing to case backlog.
“With these cases being resolved at the grassroots, the court burden is going to be lifted, and the cases will go back where they should have been before colonialism”, Odoki said.
He said there are many disputes in communities that are never solved or settled, and people often spend a lot of money seeking to resolve them.
“This is an opportunity for you to be with people; people start to recognise your worthiness and contribution in the communities,” Acana said.
Acana said, “For many years, we were sidelined in issues affecting people, yet these are our subjects. With this partnership, people will get justice without spending a lot of money and time to get justice in courts of law.”
However, Betty Acan Tino, the prime minister of the Koch clan, said they still needed more guidance on how to handle civil cases.
She added that there was a need for massive sensitisation to encourage people to take cases to the chiefs, as many preferred community development officers, probation officers and the police Child and Family Protection Unit to handle domestic and gender-based violence cases.