COME, LET’S BANG TABLES TOGETHER: Besigye Lawyer Martha Karua Tells Isaac Ssemakadde

Martha Karua Wangari, a former minister of justice in Kenya, wants Isaac Ssemakadde and his Uganda Law Society (ULS) to join her, the Dr Kizza Besigye legal team and the country’s opposition in piling pressure on the Law Council of Uganda regarding the issuance of a special and temporary practicing certificate to her.

Supposed to be the lead counsel for Dr Kizza Besigye and his co-accused Obeid Lutale Kamulegeya who face charges of attempting to undermine national security and illegal possession of firearms, Martha Karua has been denied a temporary practicing certificate by the Law Council.

Yet more lawyers from across the continent are expected to join the Besigye legal team and will need temporary practicing certificates, which the Law Council may decline to issue if their response to Karua’s application is anything to go by.

For the times the General Court Martial based at Makindye in the capital Kampala has convened, it has neither shown interest in upholding constitutional provisions nor indicated an independence to dispense justice leave alone their confusion and legal knowledge deficiencies, Besigye’s lawyers have argued.

Exchanges between counsel Eron Kiiza on one side and the military court’s judge advocate and the prosecutor on the other have not only exposed the court and those who sit on it but it has also bolstered the defence team to label it a tribunal and not a court, a label that angered the judge advocate who even threatened that Kiiza would land into trouble, to which the firebrand youthful lawyer responded that the judge advocate would also find himself in the same trouble.

Besigye and Lutale were further remanded until January 07 to allow their legal team get practicing certificates. Now, Martha Wangari Karua, the vocal Kenyan politician and lawyer, has urged the ULS to cooperate with her in challenging the decision of the Uganda Law Council.

She argued that the Law Council of Uganda had disregarded Article 19 of the IBA Standards for the Independence of the Legal Profession, which requires the appropriate association of lawyers to cooperate in assisting a foreign lawyer to obtain the necessary right of audience.

Karua wants Ssemakadde to invoke the IBA Standards for the Independence of the Legal Profession so as to support her right to practice in Uganda without discrimination as to origin or political opinion.

Martha Wangari Karua has asked Isaac Ssemakadde’s ULS to support her reapplication for a special practicing certificate by invoking the IBA Standards for the Independence of the Legal Profession.

She has asked for legal assistance and support to ensure that her rights as a lawyer are protected and upheld. Martha Karua has written to the ULS, punching holes in their reasons for denying her a practicing certificate, as reported Here.

Meanwhile, another Besigye Lawyer was ‘abducted,’ as reported Here and There.

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