The Efficacy of the Judicial System in Resolving Court Cases/Conflicts in the Construction Industry Using Construction Law

Abstract:

Globally, construction conflicts are acknowledged as a leading cause of project delays, cost overruns, and strained professional relationships. Previous studies have explored the use of litigation using interviews and questionnaires to collect the opinion, experience, and knowledge of experts. Consequently, there is limited empirical evidence based on judicial decisions. Therefore, this research explores litigation using a wealth of data from real construction court cases using R software to perform the analysis. The search strategy resulted in 101 court cases categorized as contract (63%), tort (28%), and employment/labor (9%) related cases. The overall winning rate by plaintiffs is 93%, with over 60% of these conflicts resolved in more than 2 years. The main causes of conflicts in the construction industry are non-payment and breach of contract, responsible for over 75% of all conflicts in the construction industry. Furthermore, the study findings show that an average of USD 90,000 and USD 16,000 are awarded as special and general damages, respectively. In conclusion, based on the lengthy time taken to resolve construction conflicts in comparison to the judicial targets and lead time, the judicial system in Uganda appears inefficient.