A locus mediation in Kasugu Village, Hoima District was successfully conducted. The mediation was between our client Deborah (not real name), a 67 year old widow who came to JCU on 29th June, 2020 to lodge a complaint against Denis (not real name) for encroaching and taking over her land.
Deborah’s story is that she was married to Charles (not real name) and together they had eight children but unfortunately Charles passed away in 1999. Before Charles’ passing, he had received a piece of land as a gift intervivos from his friend Arthur (not real name). Arthur gifted Charles this land for him to utilize for as long as he liked and he was not to sell it to anyone, neither was Arthur’s family allowed to chase Charles from that land.
Deborah had been cultivating this land until this year when the late Arthur’s son, Denis (not real name) took over the land. He took advantage of the lock down period when Deborah wasn’t around and started cultivating the land. This did not sit well with Deborah and she therefore sought legal support from JCU on the matter. JCU Hoima Centre through legal officer Edwin Mutaryebwa, scheduled on office mediation on 2nd July 2020 however this was later adjourned to 7th July 2020 so that a locus mediation would be conducted to ensure the presence of other family members.
In attendance of the second mediation were the; LC I Chairperson, clan leaders, relatives of both the client & respondent. During mediation, Denis showed up with his late father’s will which stated that Charles was to use the piece of land gifted to him but leave out one (1) acre. This one acre of land is the one Denis was utilizing before starting to encroach onto the rest of the land. He claimed that he didn’t know how to measure the land and therefore he assumed the entire land measured up to one acre.
After several discussions, the JCU legal officer advised the parties to measure the land and upon measurement, it was discovered that the entire land measured up to seven (7) acres of land. Denis agreed to utilize the one acre of land and leave the rest for Deborah and her children. An MoU was signed to this effect and new boundary marks were put up to demarcate the land. Our client recovered six (6) acres of land and she was so grateful for the free legal services accorded to her.