Chief Justices from around the Commonwealth have been meeting this week in Tanzania at the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association (CMJA) conference, where independence and diversity were highlighted as key to an effective judiciary.
Chief Justices from around the Commonwealth have been meeting this week in Tanzania at the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association (CMJA) conference, where independence and diversity were highlighted as key to an effective judiciary.
Meeting in Dar es Salaam, the Vice President of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu, opened the event and announced that a judiciary fund had been established in Tanzania to provide its courts with better resources.
District Judge Shamim Qureshi, Director of Programmes of the CMJA, said: "This has been our largest regional conference to date in which we shared experiences to tackle current issues affecting the Commonwealth judiciary in particular the mechanisms to promote greater judicial effectiveness and inclusiveness, addressing the gender imbalance in appointments to the Bench and dealing with hostile public attacks on the judiciary".
The theme of the conference was ‘Building an effective, accountable and inclusive judiciary’ and 305 participants from 35 Commonwealth countries attended, including representatives from the Commonwealth Secretariat.
Chief Justice Bart Katureebe of Uganda gave a keynote speech, saying there should be greater public engagement between judges and the public, and judiciaries should have a gender strategy. He also pointed out that the court system must have sufficient funds to operate as an equal arm of the state.
Justice Lynne Leitch of Canada spoke about ‘Challenges to building inclusiveness and diversity in the modern judiciary’ saying ‘there was a greater need for judges to embrace diversity in order to maintain public confidence’.
The next CMJA conference will be held in September 2018 in Brisbane, Australia.
