By Sunday Amandi

Arua city

The people in West Nile are encouraged to take up writing a will so as to avoid conflict over property sharing in their families, when they are no more.
This appeal was made during the 14^th Annual Pro bono day organised to give legal advice to the community members at the OPM grounds in Arua city, with the theme, Understanding succession processes as a means to protect property rights and end family conflicts.

According to Loy Karunji, the Deputy registrar of Arua high court, who was the chief guest at the event, writing a will does a lot in avoiding family conflicts over property. “The most obvious cause of conflicts in a family over inheritance is failure by the deceased to write a will, if you start to deal with the property of a deceased without aouthority, you are committing a crime, whether we like it or not, death is a fact of life, but we can live our affaires in order,” Karunji said.

Similarly, council Jimmy Madira of Madira and company advocates, the regional representative of the advocates at Uganda law society executive council calls upon the community members to consider will writing, and discourages them from associating it with death. “While you still have the time, organise your affaires, so that you can avoid some of these conflicts through writing a will. Many people associate writing a will with dying, it’s not true, you are trying to avoid problems,” said council Madira.

Meanwhile, Joyce Akua, who attended the event calls the legal officers to consider sensitizing the women about their property rights from the grass root level, as many of them are suffering without any assistance.

Joyce said, it’s only the educated women who have some knowledge about will writing, unlike the illiterate women who cannot even talk about it.
The pro bono project of Uganda law society aims at promoting equality in access to justice and improve delivery and standard of legal services.

COVER PHOTO: Loy Karunji and council Jimmy Madira seated, posing for a group photo with other lawyers By Sunday Amandi