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Bail hearings in courts are routinely mired by delays caused by the alleged verification of sureties’ supporting documents, including national identity cards, a practice that infringes the rights of accused persons.
Prosecutors haphazardly seek time to authenticate national IDs presented by sureties, prompting adjournments that last days or even weeks. These postponements prolong remand for bailable offences and undermine the constitutional right to personal liberty once an application for bail has been made.
Such delays fuel Uganda’s high pre-trial detention rate. According to the Legal Aid Service Providers Network, as of April 2024, nearly 46.2 per cent of inmates were pre-trial detainees, a figure partly attributable to the “warehousing policy” of the Ugandan judiciary, which rewards sloth and pre-trial incarceration. Yet every additional day spent in custody without conviction is an affront to justice.
ANALOG ID VERIFICATION IN A DIGITAL AGE AND ITS FURTHERANCE OF VIOLATION OF THE ACCUSED’S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
Before the digital era, bail applications were determined through court-based processes, with judicial officers assessing sureties using oral examination, identity documents presented in court, and local council recommendation letters, without prolonged reliance on external verification.
Digitisation was intended to improve this process by enabling courts to rely on existing state-held digital identity records for faster and more reliable verification. Courts’ reliance on the national identity registry was expected to reduce delays, minimise impersonation, and facilitate prompt judicial decisions affecting personal liberty.
In practice, however, bail proceedings continue to be delayed by the persistent use of manual verification methods despite the existence of a national digital identity registry.
Uganda’s National Identification and Registration Authority maintains a central electronic database of citizens’ identity details, yet courts remain unable to verify identity in real time.
Instead, prosecutors and investigating officers routinely write to NIRA to confirm a surety’s identity and await responses through mail or hard-copy correspondence, resulting in avoidable adjournments.
This failure to integrate the NIRA database into the Electronic Court Case Management Information System has recreated and intensified bureaucracy, creating an institutional loophole that enables the State harmfully use of bail as a punitive measure, with accused persons kept on remand through adjournments justified in the name of alleged identity verification.
This practice was evident during bail proceedings in the Andrew Felix Kaweesi murder case. Media reports indicate that when two suspects, already six years on remand on related charges, applied for bail on additional counts, the prosecution sought time to verify sureties’ documents.
The investigating officer informed the court that he had written to NIRA but had not yet received feedback, leading the High Court to adjourn the matter and keep the accused in custody while verification remained pending.
Such alleged verification requests frequently result in repeated adjournments, thereby prolonging remand periods due to congested court schedules and slow institutional responses. These practices persist despite Uganda’s investments in digital infrastructure.
It is a striking irony that while smartphones and computers are capable of instant data queries, courts remain effectively offline during bail hearings. Judicial officers are routinely told that verification requires additional time, time that accused persons spend on remand, even though the relevant information already exists within government systems and could, in principle, be accessed immediately.
As a result, bail is effectively used as a punitive measure by the state, with accused persons deprived of their liberty through protracted alleged verification requests. These delays are not the result of technology itself, but of the failure by the Judiciary and the State to coordinate their digital systems, leading to justice being delayed by identity checks that should take minutes rather than days.
E-JUSTICE PROGRESS AND PERSISTENT GAPS THAT UNDERMINE ACCESS TO JUSTICE
The Judiciary has demonstrated its commitment to digital transformation through the Judicature (Electronic Filing, Service and Virtual Proceedings) Rules, 2025, rollout of the Video Conferencing System, the implementation Performance Enhancement Tool, the development of a Judgment Writing Tool, and the rollout of the Electronic Court Case Management Information System in several courts.
Court of Appeal filings are now conducted electronically, replacing paper-heavy practices of the past. Similarly, Uganda Law Society (ULS) has persistently advocated and emphasised Digital transformation in justice dispensation under the 4Ds championed by President Isaac K Ssemakadde.
During the August court vacation last year, ULS organised a successful Tech-Fest conference. Yet a critical gap remains in the lack of integration between judicial systems and other government databases.
Although ECCMIS is designed to interface with external platforms and Uganda’s e-government framework promotes inter- agency data sharing, courts still lack direct access to NIRA’s registry.
A judicial officer may receive an electronic case file through ECCMIS but cannot instantly verify a surety’s identity or National Identification Number during a bail hearing. This disconnect undermines the gains promised by e-justice. Without linkage to NIRA, courts continue to operate with one hand tied behind their back when expediting bail decisions.
GLOBAL MODELS FOR INTEGRATED JUSTICE SYSTEMS
Other jurisdictions offer useful models for integrating national identification systems with court processes to enhance efficiency and fairness. Several countries have successfully linked their justice systems to identity registries, thereby reducing unnecessary delays.
In Morocco, in 2023, financial courts were prepared for access to the national digital identity system. This move was intended to enable officials of the financial courts to verify, more effectively, the identities of individuals appearing before judges.
In furtherance of this initiative, Morocco’s General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) and the Court of Auditors signed a Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate the use of the digital national identity system by financial courts.
The agreement aimed to establish a secure and reliable mechanism for verifying and completing national identification data, thereby facilitating the work of financial courts and enhancing efficiency in the execution of their functions.
Estonia is widely recognised for its advanced digital government and e-justice framework. Estonian courts have operated electronic case-management systems that support seamless digital proceedings.
The e-File system is the central platform of the judicial system, providing data to court information systems as well as those of the police, prisons, prosecutors, and criminal case-management bodies. Information is entered only once and securely re-used by government agencies, saving time and resources.
Government institutions share data securely through a decentralised system eliminating silos and the real-time registries enable seamless service delivery From these jurisdictions and many more others, the lesson is clear, integrated systems save time and protect rights.
When courts can directly access identity registries, requests for adjournments to verify documents largely disappear, pre-trial detention is reduced, and public confidence in the justice system improves.
BRIDGING THE TECHNOLOGICAL GAP AND PROTECTING RIGHTS
Uganda’s challenge is to bridge the technological divide between courts and other government agencies. There are growing calls to integrate NIRA’s database with ECCMIS to enable real-time verification of sureties’ identities.
This requires coordination between the Judiciary, NIRA, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, alongside investment in secure data links and training. The benefits would be quite substantial.
Instant verification would eliminate week- long adjournments justified by document checks. A magistrate or judge could confirm a surety’s identity immediately using an ID number, a card reader, or biometric tools already common in banking and immigration.
For accused persons, these reforms cannot come soon enough. Bail verification delays clog court dockets and impose severe human costs, separating individuals from their families and livelihoods on purely procedural grounds.
Verifying identities in minutes rather than weeks would signal a justice system committed to efficiency, fairness, and respect for liberty. As Uganda digitises governance, courtrooms must keep pace. An accused person’s liberty should turn on the merits of the case, not on slow paper exchanges between government agencies.
The author is an Advocate of the Courts of Judicature, Founder and Team Leader, PM Digital Law Hub.
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