Access  to justice, according to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, includes  the  right to  legal  assistance and Uganda’s Constitution further gives entitlement for  an accused person charged with a capital offense to be  represented in court  at state  expense.

LASPNET secretariat held the quarterly thematic cluster meetings in February this year. These were followed by Working group meetings to discuss the salient issues that had emanated from each cluster meeting. We came up with a summary of these as below:

As a network of Non-state legal aid service providers, the enhancement of skills of the membership and expanding the repertoire of competencies can never be over emphasized.With the mandate to maintain and improve the standards of conduct and learning of the legal profession in Uganda through facilitating the acquisition of legal knowledge by members of the legal profession in Uganda as regards conditions of practice and otherwise, the Uganda Law Society is strategically placed with non-state and state legal practitioners as a major player in the justice system of UgandaWith a diverse membership of thousands of legal brains with extensive experience in research, litigation, legislation and other facets of law, partnership with the ULS would greatly enhance quality improvement, skill and standards of legal aid that LASPNET seeks through capacitation of her membership to improve access to justice for the indigent.

In April 2013, LASPNET volunteered to take a Gender Audit with the Objectivity of exploring and analyzing it effectiveness in carrying out the steps necessary for engendering its programmes and projects and mainstreaming into all its institutional activities. The main purpose of the gender audit was to assess the extent to which gender has been mainstreamed into current policies, programmes, organizational structure and procedures, and promote learning on how to effectively implement gender mainstreaming in different aspects of the network including its membership. The audit results were expected to serve as inputs into future formulation of internal policies, programme strategies, and organizational structures across the membership. It will further provide a strong basis on which to broaden the secretariat's ability to incorporate a gender dimension in all its coordination structures and systems.