SCRUTINIZING THE POSITION OF SOUTH SUDANESE IMMIGRANTS IN UGANDA

Uganda, which harbors the largest percentage of refugees in East Africa and is currently the world’s third largest refugee hosting nation receives a total of 12,567 refugees annually and hosts approximately 860,000 South Sudanese refugees with over 2.2million South Sudanese in exile.

The 860,000 refugees from South Sudan live in settlements in northern Uganda in the three districts of Adjumani, Lamwo, and Arua, which have the largest refugee populations.

The relative peace in Southern Sudan was disrupted in 1983 when the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement Army was founded to lead armed struggle against Sudan’s then newly declared Islamic State under president Gaafar Nimeiry which later was known as the second Sudanese Civil war. The violence made Ugandan people living in South Sudan migrate back into Uganda and many South Sudanese also sought safety and crossed into other countries.

South Sudan's refugee population stands at 2.2million; the highest on the continent despite the signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) in September 2018. The Revitalized Transitional Government of national Unity of South Sudan was established on 22 Feb 2020.

While this event marks an outstanding development to improve prospects for viable comprehensive solutions for the millions of South Sudan’s forcibly displaced, several critical issues are still to be resolved during the pre and transitional phases prescribed by the R-ARCSS

Sample intention surveys conducted in 2019 in all asylum Countries have shown that a majority of south Sudanese refugees don’t intend to return in the near future. In fact in 2019, 24,000 South Sudanese new arrivals were recorded in Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

This poses urgent need to address access of justice of South Sudanese immigrants in Uganda since they now comprise a fundamental part of the Ugandan community.

There are two main approaches to the use of the term "access to justice".

At the very minimum - and indeed as originally conceived - it is a term seen as being concerned with the means for securing vested rights, particularly through the use of courts and tribunals.

From this perspective the particular focus has been on developing means of overcoming the obstacles faced by certain groups in making use of the processes established to provide redress where rights are considered not to have been respected.

These have included public funding for legal advice and representation, special procedures (such as class actions and public interest litigation), simplified procedures (for smaller claims) and less judicial procedures (such as mediation). It is important, however, that such processes are a means to obtaining respect for rights or appropriate remedies where this has not occurred and do not entail any surrender of entitlements unless this is done pursuant to an act of consent that is both genuine and informed.

At the heart of access to justice of refugees and migrants is the concern about the cost of state funding for lawyers in private practice as a means of facilitating access to justice. This has also led to the awarding on a competitive basis to only certain law firms of contracts for the provision of legal services, the promotion of the use of conditional and contingency fees to finance litigation, the use of paralegals in place of lawyers for certain types of problems and support for the creation and operation of specialist centres (whether public entities with a degree of independence or genuinely non-governmental bodies) to provide advice and representation

Therefore, there's need to dispense the required standard of education and awareness to South Sudanese refugees in Uganda to ensure that they can access justice; legal representation, law and order keeping entities like Uganda Police, or even push for citizenship procedures at different institutions, and capably register complaints at the ministry of internal affairs which is in charge of immigration related affairs for it is true that one who isn’t capable of accessing justice and fairness is not assured of a life free of grievances.

As the number of South Sudanese immigrants elevates, access to justice is a crucial matter to be discussed.

The author is a immigration lawyer in Uganda