Mr. Owiny-Dollo, the Chief (in)Justice; I have taken note of your response to my assertion that the judiciary you lead is complicit in the political persecution and eventual death of Hon. Muhammad Ssegirinya. Like I said at his burial, the judiciary and everyone else who conspired to keep Hon. Ssegirinya in jail, even when he was clearly dying, all have his blood on their hands!
But I am curious: why have you found my comments deserving of a response but you continue to maintain deafening silence about the ongoing public uproar against the trial of civilians in military tribunals that has raged on for years now?
Why have you not dedicated similar energy to the appeal against this injustice that has spent four years gathering dust on your desk at the Supreme Court?
The injustice that has seen many Ugandans spend years or months in detention without trial? Isn’t it the same judiciary that remanded Kakwenza to prison instead of sending him to the ICU for emergency treatment when he appeared in court with festering wounds following his abduction and torture for criticizing the NRM regime?
That judiciary denied the ill Hon. Ssegirinya bail for two whole years, but released healthy NRM legislators and ministers within just a few days of their arrest for stealing relief items from vulnerable citizens in Karamoja who were dying of poverty.
That same judiciary sentenced Edward Awebwa to six years in jail for criticizing dictator Museveni on TikTok, but let off the hook senior police officers who arrested, detained, tortured and left Hon. Zaake for dead! The list is long.
You, Mr. Owiny-Dollo, abused your position and influence in the judiciary to deny the people of Uganda justice in the petition we filed at the Supreme Court challenging dictator Museveni’s rigging of the 2021 election.
You did not stop there but went ahead to hound and persecute the only Judge in that Court who dared to question your illegal orders until she fled the country to save her life!
You boast that the judiciary you lead “saved me” when it granted me bail, and we resumed our presidential campaigns, but that can not be further from reality.
The reality is that the massive pressure that Ugandans across the country put on the regime after our arrest left it with no choice but to reluctantly let the courts to free us just like the case was in 2018.
The other reality is that under your leadership, the judiciary has become either numb, unwilling, or incapable of fulfilling its constitutional obligation to dispense justice without fear or favour in cases where dictator Museveni and his regime declare or are thought to be interested in particular outcomes.
The reason your judiciary denied Hon. Ssegirinya bail is that dictator Museveni, contrary to the law, had expressly forbidden it. In that moment, under your leadership, the judiciary could not muster any courage, conviction or foresight to do what was right: give Hon. Ssegirinya bail before it was too late!
It therefore does not take rocket science for citizens to see that any judicial officer handling such “sensitive” files like Ssegirinya’s ultimately has to consider the implication that ruling against the regime will have on their future and fortunes in that judiciary.
Ugandans are tired of a judiciary that works like a dead clock: only correct twice a day. They demand for a judiciary that is consistent and impartial in its dispensation of justice and interpretation of the law no matter what suspect appears before it and what they are accused of! That is not much to ask.
Going forward, Ugandans hope you’ll gather some courage to put an end to the trial of civilians in military courts! If you’re too busy, you could write this one paragraph: “We have read and agree with the numerous decisions of the Constitutional Court barring the trial of civilians in military courts, and have nothing useful to add.” That one paragraph can restore hope to millions and their shuttered trust in the judiciary.
Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine is the National Unity Platform (NUP) president.
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