Over the past twelve years, CEHURD strategically positioned itself as a leading organisation that uses strategic litigation as a tool to advance the enjoyment of health and human rights in Uganda and East Africa. CEHURD’s Strategic Litigation programme has been central here. This positioning is hinged onto the institution’s strategic plan objective 1, Promoting sustainable access to justice in health and human rights in Uganda. To date, a total of over one hundred and twenty-five cases (125) cases have been documented. Of these, one hundred cases (100) are pro-bono and twenty- five (25) strategic cases. These have been successfully undertaken (directly or indirectly) in courts of law, quasi-judicial bodies, tribunals and through mediation/negotiation. Our pro-bono cases benefit individuals and the strategic cases benefit the public at large and address system gaps.
CEHURD established a fully-fledged legal aid clinic, undertakes mobile legal aid clinics within communities, explore use of various formal and informal justice mechanisms as well as employ Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms. For greater impact, we have strengthened the capacities of Community Health Advocates (CHAs) in more than 35 districts of operation and these are able to identify cases and engender greater citizen participation in pursuance of health rights. The legal Aid clinic alone, documents close to ten (10) cases of rights violations a monthly basis. These cases received by CEHURD relate to maternal health rights violations, access to medicines/ services, sexual and gender-based violence (defilement and rape) and mental health.
CEHURD is cognizant of the fact that sustaining our mission and vision requires weaving the intricate connections between the local to grassroots to national to regional and international human rights mechanisms and processes. As such therefore, we shall invest in strengthening CEHURD capacity to engage with regional and international human rights mechanisms and processes as well as learn from other like-minded actors in health rights litigation within Africa and internationally.
