The Uganda Law Society on Wednesday released its quarterly rule of law report, this one covering the third quarter of 2023. At the root of the concept of rule of law is that all entities in a society, individuals and institutions, are subject to the law and treated equally in its implementation. According to ULS, progress was made in the third quarter in improving access to justice through the appointment of more judicial officers, but human rights challenges and accountability failures persist.
Last month, an international survey widely regarded as the global arbiter of the standard ranked Uganda near the bottom of its 2023 list — 125th out of 142 countries. The World Justice Project also ranked Uganda 31st out of 34 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The report, released just days after a scathing US government business advisory that listed several areas in which the government’s adherence to governance and accountability had regressed, had little good to say about criminal justice, corruption, and the exercise of government power in Uganda.
The first positive development in the last quarter mentioned by ULS, under accountability and transparency, is the constitutional court’s ruling on petitions by former NSSF managing director David Jamwa challenging the procedures and legal technicalities under which he was tried and convicted. The rejections should motivate the government “as a proactive measure against corruption” to develop “a set of values that all Ugandans, especially those in public offices, must be taught and adhere to,” ULS said. It added: “The decision in this case echoes the need for a concerted effort to instil ethical values and uphold the highest standards of conduct within the Ugandan society.”
It is not very clear what the argument is here. Is it that David Jamwa should remain in prison and the country is better off with its anti-corruption laws unchanged? Or is ULS calling on the government to make a “concerted effort” to uphold the law? Either way, it is a strange victory to dwell on. That David Jamwa was convicted of abuse of office and causing financial loss to the government and is still in prison shows that the law worked as it should. To the neutral observer who wants their country to work, an appeals court ruling that he was wrongly convicted on a technicality, should it have come to that, is a victory for due process — and the rule of law.
That aside, Uganda’s biggest failings in terms of accountability and transparency, according to outside sources who are not afraid to point them out, are “inconsistently implemented legislation,” government officials who engage “in corrupt practices with impunity,” and the immunity from the law enjoyed by the well-connected, who are rarely prosecuted. Surely there are other recent positive developments that can be highlighted since Mr Jamwa’s conviction, especially as the country is being singled out for its significant weaknesses in these areas.
In other words: will the constitutional court’s decision in David Jamwa’s petitions lead to more prosecutions, and hopefully convictions, of corrupt officials?
The report highlighted the appointment and deployment of new judicial officers across the country, which it said will help reduce the backlog of pending cases and build trust and confidence in the judiciary.
It also outlined performance data for the judiciary for the financial year ending July, although this was published on 20 October — in the fourth quarter. “The positive outcomes reported indicate a dedication to excellence and the effective administration of justice, fostering public trust and confidence in the judicial system,” it said.
The outcomes include an increase in the rate and number of cases — mostly criminal — disposed of, a 4.5 per cent reduction in the backlog of cases, the addition of six new high court circuits, bringing the total to 20, the digitisation of court case management, and criminal sessions on gender-based violence in seven upcountry districts/regions.
ULS commented on this performance, but declined to go into the detail. “The judiciary should (also) prioritise cases involving constitutional petitions, enforcement of human rights, and public interest litigation,” it said. Other critiques were not as timid. According to Isaac Ssemakade, writing in the Observer, the nine-judge Supreme Court completed only 8.2 per cent of the cases before it in 2022/2023, compared to 63 per cent for other courts. Interestingly, in a public presentation of the cases disposed of by the courts, Alfonse Owiny-Dollo, the chief justice, includes all other areas except constitutional cases — which may have much to do with the fact that the Supreme Court has not disposed of a constitutional case in three years.
One of the constitutional issues before the Supreme Court is whether civilians should be tried by military courts. Two rulings by the Constitutional Court in 2021 and 2022 said they should not, but the attorney general appealed to the Supreme Court, which raised the quorum to ‘temporarily’ overturn the rulings. However, the top court has yet to sit to hear and rule on the appeals.
Later in the report, under ‘Due process and the climate of legality’, the ULS said it had twice condemned the trial of civilians in military courts, citing several international laws to support its position – including one of the rulings overturned by the Supreme Court. Yet it omits to mention that the law was overturned, just as it forgets to mention that the Chief Justice’s statistics on ‘a dedication to excellence and effective administration of justice’ were deliberately misleading. In addition, at this point, it is hard not to notice that this may be deliberate: the authors of this report go out of their way not to name and shame certain authorities for their failings.
If ULS has an opinion on how the police handled Bobi Wine’s rallies in September, it is keeping it to itself. Bobi Wine is not in the report, although, to be clear, this is a report that feels the need to talk about the Vitol oil supply deal that was tabled in Parliament in November.
This report could, in the future, discover the existence of self-censorship — or worse, full-blown censorship — in Uganda; that will make for interesting reading.
