International Development Law Organization

Webinar - Access to Justice in the Context of COVID-19 in East Africa: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda

13 Oct 2020

Access to Justice in the Context of COVID-19 in East Africa: Experiences from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda

The declaration of COVID-19 as a public health emergency forced governments around the world to implement rapid response measures to contain the spread of the virus, with limited resource preparedness for response and recovery. Across East Africa, there has been a pattern of disparity in the implementation of COVID-19 control measures and governments have had to introduce new measures/adjust existing measures to deal with the different dimensions of the crisis. Governments have been forced to change their approaches to service delivery, including the delivery of justice. The effect of COVID-19 has been heavily borne by the formal justice systems which were not equipped to effectively function in the context of a ‘shut down’. Judiciaries across the region have had to either close entirely or scale down operations. As a result, judiciaries and other justice service providers have had to adapt to the changing context by adopting technology based innovations especially, to sustain the provision of justice services, while adhering to the COVID-19 prevention guidelines and standard operating procedures put in place by their respective governments.

Against the foregoing, the International Development Law Organization (IDLO) is hosting a webinar on “Access to Justice in context of COVID-19 in East Africa” on 8 October 2020. The webinar will provide an online platform for engagement with access to justice actors from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, on the dynamic access to justice needs during the COVID-19 pandemic and appropriate response strategies. 

Key issues:

  • The impact of the dynamic COVID-19 control strategies on access to justice, drawing experiences from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania? 
  • An analysis of the various country adaptation responses to emerging access to justice needs, especially for the most marginalized groups.
  • An assessment of the critical elements of a functional and practical response strategy for access to justice actors that addresses the short, medium, and long-term impact of COVID-19 on access to justice.

Speakers:

 
Hon. Judith Omange
Registrar of the High Court in Kenya
 
Hon. Justice Jane Frances Abodo 
Director of Public Prosecutions, Uganda
 
 
Dr. Conrad Bosire
Ag. Executive Director, National Council on Administration of Justice (NCAJ), Kenya
 
Ms. Pheona Wall
President, Uganda Law Society (ULS)
 
 
Mr. Andrews Kananga
Executive Director, The Legal Aid Forum, Rwanda
 
Ms. Tike Mwambipile
Executive Director, Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA)