Legal and human rights circles in Uganda have been roiled by no fewer than three troubling developments in the last week. Over the weekend, the secretary of the Uganda Law Society purported to expel both the organisation’s newly-elected president, Isaac Ssemakadde, and his deputy, from the ULS council, citing questions of ‘decorum’. This prompted the remaining council members in turn to expel the secretary and a second member of the council who backed him. Then there is the troubling matter of a judge of the supreme court, Esther Kisaakye, who has ‘gone into exile’, saying she fears for her life. This follows what appears to have been a witch-hunt directed at her ever since, against the will of her colleagues on the country’s highest court, she read her minority judgment in a high-level political challenge. The third major issue is the abduction and arrest of prominent opposition politician Kizza Besigya. He was kidnapped from Kenya under disputed circumstances, and is now facing trial by a military court instead of a normal civilian court, and there are fears that the court will be rigged against him.
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Recent elections for the Uganda Law Society council saw maverick lawyer Isaac Ssemakadde returned as president with an enormous majority. Members knew his reputation as someone who ‘banged on the table’, as he has put it himself. But they elected him in great numbers, precisely for that reason, saying they were concerned about the growing tendency of the ULS to toe a government line, rather than standing up for justice. His brand of iconoclasm was needed to challenge the establishment, they said.
Since his election, Ssemakadde has caused waves, challenging several government appointees and their role in the ULS. He also issued an executive order expelling the attorney general from the ULS council and from his position as the ‘leader’ of the bar.
Then, over the weekend, ULS secretary, Phillip Munaabi, purported to expel Ssemakadde and the ULS vice president, citing problems with their ‘decorum’ and other issues, including the use of ‘vulgar and condescending language’. Munaabi said this caused ‘tremendous damage’ to the ULS.
But on Sunday the rest of the council struck back. Under the leadership of Ssemakadde, and with the signed support of the whole council except for Munaabi and his sole backer, they denounced the purported expulsion of Ssemakadde. They then suspended Munaabi and his supporter from the council, and announced that the issue of their expulsion would be dealt with at a general meeting on 17 December.
It will be a meeting to watch.
File confiscated, but judgment read anyway
Earlier in the week, the legal establishment was alarmed by shock news that supreme court judge Esther Kisaakye has fled Uganda into ‘exile’ after being warned of plans to kill her. No further details, such as where she was living, were available.
Ugandan media obtained a series of documents related to the judge’s move. All they confirmed is that she is now in an undisclosed foreign country, and that she is being helped by a US law firm to highlight her invidious position. The judge, who has a doctorate in juridical science from the American University in Washington DS, became the target of official displeasure after she sat on a full bench of judges to decide a highly contentious petition brought by presidential contender Bobi Wine. His petition challenged the election results that returned Yoweri Museveni for a sixth term of office as the country’s president, claiming electoral fraud.
The rest of the supreme court bench refused the petitioner’s bid for an extension of time to make further representations, but Kisaakye, at that stage the second most senior justice on Uganda’s highest court, would have allowed the time extension, given the extremely unusual circumstances. However, after the majority decision was delivered, when she tried to read her minority judgment, the sound and lights were switched off and the rest of the bench walked out. She said the chief justice, Alfonse Owiny-Dollo, confiscated a file with the formal copy of her decision, but that it was her ‘constitutional duty’ to disobey his unlawful orders (to her) and read her minority decision. She then did so, using a duplicate copy of her decision from her office.
Since then, her life has been made increasingly difficult because of what the US law firm calls ‘two and a half years of persecution, discrimination and retaliation’ against her by the chief justice and other supreme court staff.
‘Neither serving, nor retired’
Among other actions, the judicial service commission set up an inquiry into her conduct, and her salary and benefits were suspended. A petition she brought to overturn the commission’s report (that said a tribunal should be established to investigate removing her from office) has never been given a court hearing date.
Eventually, since she was no longer given any judicial cases to hear, she decided to opt for early retirement, but Museveni rejected that application. Now, in her words, she is ‘neither a serving justice nor a retired justice’ of the supreme court.
Five months ago, the International Bar Association wrote to the UN special rapporteurs and other UN human rights bodies about the perilous state of judicial independence in Uganda. They point to Museveni’s interventions in court matters, by writing to the CJ directing that he take action on decisions of other judges, an example now being followed by other senior judges. But the IBA also highlights the situation of Kisaakye, saying her removal exemplified the problem of ‘executive overreach impacting the independence of the judiciary’.
Abduction from Kenya
The third alarming development of the week was the abduction, from Kenya, of prominent opposition politician, Kizza Besigye. He was brought back to Uganda during last week and appeared, midweek, at a military court, charged with illegal possession of firearms, among other counts.
His kidnapping is proving a hot issue for relations between Kenya and Uganda: while Kenya says it had no knowledge of the operation, Uganda says it worked with Kenya to bring Besigye back to Uganda.
Now Kenya, facing criticism at home for permitting the abduction, says it is investigating how the kidnapping took place.
Trial by military – not civilian – court
Just as worrying for Uganda’s legal community is the fact that Besigye, who has probably faced more criminal trials than any other person in the country, always without a conviction, is now to be tried by a military body instead of in a civilian court.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, said he was shocked by the abduction of Besigye from Kenya and his forcible return to Uganda, as well as the earlier abductions from Kenya of 26 other members of the opposition party. He was equally concerned about Uganda’s practice of ‘prosecuting civilians in military courts, in contravention of the country’s obligations under international human rights law.’
He added that the continued abduction of Ugandan opposition leaders and supporters from Kenya had to stop ‘as must the deeply concerning practice in Uganda of prosecuting civilians in military courts.’
The ULS also slammed the move, saying that the military courts didn’t have jurisdiction to hear the charges. The practice was particularly worrying since the constitutional court has already held that the exercise of jurisdiction of military courts to try civilians for criminal offences was unconstitutional.
The ULS applauded the Law Society of Kenya for speaking up about protecting the rights of other East Africans within Kenya, adding that the ULS called on the East African community and the African Union to set up independent investigations ‘into Uganda’s abuse of cross-border legal processes’.
STATEMENT-CONDEMNING-THE-RENDITION-AND-SUBSEQUENT-PROSECUTION-OF-DR.-KIZZA-BESIGYE-36-OTHERS
ULS council repudiates expulsion of president
EXPULSION OF SSEMAKADDE & ASSIMWE FROM COUNCIL