Yesterday, Parliament moved to consider the Administration of the Judiciary Bill, 2018 clause by clause at committee stage and members raised several questions and concerns about the Bill that was introduced in 2018.
The Bill seeks to operationalize the Constitutional provisions relating to the Judiciary by providing for the further application and enforcement of Chapter Eight of the Constitution. Chapter Eight buttresses the institutional, operational, and administrative independence of the Judiciary.
As is the case with most government staff, retiring judicial officers are entitled to a retirement package, but this Bill has proposals for a package that makes you wonder why we love to act like we are a rich country.
The Bill says that the Chief Justice, the Deputy Chief Justice, The Principal Judge, Judges of the High Court, Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, the Chief Registrar, the Registrars, Magistrates and Chief Magistrates (basically judges at all levels) should receive a monthly allowance in retirement equivalent to their basic salary.
This is in addition to a house allowance that is in excess of Shs350 million for the Chief Justice, medical insurance, car allowance and car maintenance allowance among others. In short, if the Bill is passed ‘as is’ into law, a retired judicial officer will cost the taxpayer as much as one in active service.
Yesterday in Parliament, several MPs expressed their disagreement with the proposed bill, with Nandala Mafabi (Budadiri County West) advising the Bill to be subjected to the Public Finance Management Act.
Katikamu North County MP Eng. Abraham Byandala said that they should only think about enhancing judicial officers’ salaries, and not having them paid a life salary.
“It is wrong to begin talking of life salary. We should think of enhancing their (judicial officers) salaries so that they can get a big pay at retirement” Byandala said.
These retirement benefits make you rethink your profession but most importantly, it makes you wonder if these requests are resonable.