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Court of Appeal justice Cheborion Barishaki has urged fellow judges to cultivate the habit of going to the ground (legally known as visiting locus) in cases of maternal health and ascertain the truth.

The jurist reasoned that visiting the locus should not only stop with land matters but also with cases of maternal health that are very delicate and important.

It’s the court’s practice that judicial officers before delivering their verdicts, go to the ground and ascertain for themselves what is there.

“The lawyers should not be there arguing that you came late, that what.., the issue should be, are these health services being provided as a matter of fact. Go to the hospitals and see, I think we should start visiting locus,” Justice Barishaki said on Thursday during the national colloquium on maternal health, reproductive health and land organised by Ahaki, a civil society organisation in Kampala.

He added: “A lot of locus visits are done in land matters but when it comes to matters of hospitals, the Constitutional Court has never stood up to say, let's go to Nakaseke Hospital, let's go to Arua Hospital, no, they are deciding matters based on affidavits and affidavits are saying things are ok, there are medicines, doctors and it ends there.”

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