Access To Criminal Justice In Rural Hard-to-reach Areas In Uganda: A Case Study Of Kalangala District

ABSTRACT Justice Law and Order Sector member agencies, departments and other NonGovernmental Organisations, have played a big role in addressing the issues of access to crime justice in Uganda and more especially the rural however, the problem still exists and the gap is still very big whereby the marginalised and vulnerable groups being disadvantaged by age, gender, history, disability and economic status. These categories have bigger challenges in accessing justice and face discrimination, abuse, exploitation and neglect and yet lack capacity to enforce their rights through meaningful remedies," the report reads. The study was conducted following specific objectives that guided researcher to gather the necessary data. They are included establishing: evidence based information on accessibility to criminal justice and legal services in hard-to-reach rural areas of Uganda; Providing baseline information on crimes rampant in islands and hard-to-reach areas; analysis of patterns and linkages of Hard-to-reach areas and how these affect the right to access justice by all; establishing challenges and make recommendations for the same Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed to collect data. Quantitative methods included: questionnaires Observation and photography, where as the qualitative methods included in-depth interviews. Different tools were used as will be discussed later. In conclusion, JLOS partners have made noticeable and tremendous contributions to promotion of the access to criminal justice in hard-to-reach areas but are overstretched accessibility is hindered by: corruption, poverty, illiteracy, low levels of education, long distances and ignorance leading to reasons why hundreds of Ugandans are languishing in prison having failed to get timely justice in courts of law. Police and prisons have poor infrastructures and poor transport in hard to reach-areas among other economic and social problems making justice be considered leisure and benefit of the rich as the majority population have lost trust in the justice sector due to corruption and povertyrelated issues among other factors that impend them from accessing justice for all.