Access to justice: Widows and the institutions regulating succession to property in Uganda

Abstract

The 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda in terms of article 31 (2) thereof, establishes rights under which widows and widowers can inherit property from their spouses and enjoy parental rights over their children. A duty is placed on the government to make appropriate laws to this end. More important though, the state has a duty to facilitate the administration of estates in general by making, through decentralization, the institutional and legal framework on succession more accessible to ordinary people. An issue that deserves fresh consideration is whether this obligation to make the legal and institutional framework on succession accessible to ordinary people and especially widows, the years fater the Constitution was promulgated has been realized, and if so, whether it has advanced the property rights of these surviving female spouses in the estates of their deceased spouses.