The First Witness
Professor Jacob Godfrey Agea and the Behaviour of Justice-Seeking Communities
“In the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter shall be established.” — 2 Corinthians 13:1
Beloved,
Every generation is tempted to mistake its assumptions for reality.
Those who dwell within courtrooms often imagine that justice begins where the courthouse gates open and ends where the judge pronounces judgment.
Those who practise law sometimes imagine that every citizen instinctively regards the courts as the first and natural refuge for every grievance.
Yet wisdom demands that before we speak about justice, we must first ask the people how they themselves seek it.
For institutions exist to serve society.
Society does not exist to vindicate institutions.
It is for this reason that I begin, not with my own observations, but with those of another.
Before this Letter speaks, let Professor Jacob Godfrey Agea speak.
Listening Before Speaking
Professor Agea undertook an ethnographic study among communities in the Lango Sub-region.
He did not begin by asking whether witchcraft was true or false.
He did not begin by condemning indigenous beliefs.
Nor did he begin by defending them.
He asked a simpler and perhaps more profound question:
How do ordinary people respond when they experience injustice?
That question is more important than it first appears.
For it shifts our attention away from legal doctrine and towards human behaviour.
The question before us is no longer merely what the law provides.
It is what people actually do.
What the People Revealed
The voices Professor Agea recorded are not the voices of constitutional lawyers.
Neither are they the voices of judges or professors.
They are farmers.
Elders.
Mothers.
Local leaders.
Ordinary Ugandans navigating disputes over land, livestock, family, elections and community life.
Across these narratives, a common pattern emerges.
When people perceive that formal institutions cannot protect them, cannot resolve their disputes effectively, or cannot command their confidence, they begin looking elsewhere.
Some seek traditional authorities.
Some seek spiritual intervention.
Some seek indigenous mechanisms of accountability.
Others seek forms of communal sanction beyond the reach of formal legal institutions.
The details differ.
The mechanism does not.
The Behaviour Matters More Than the Belief
This Letter is not concerned with evaluating the truth or falsity of any particular spiritual belief.
That question belongs elsewhere.
Our concern is different.
Our concern is behavioural.
The critical observation arising from Professor Agea’s work is that people do not cease seeking justice merely because confidence in one institution declines.
They continue seeking justice.
They simply seek it somewhere else.
That observation deserves careful reflection.
For it reveals something fundamental about human nature.
The demand for justice does not disappear.
Only the destination changes.
A Jurisprudential Observation
Permit me, then, to offer the first observation arising from Professor Agea’s work.
When confidence in a justice institution weakens, citizens rarely abandon the pursuit of justice itself.
Instead, they migrate towards another institution that they perceive to be more capable of delivering certainty, accountability, protection or resolution.
This migration may be wise.
It may be misguided.
It may sometimes protect rights.
It may sometimes expose citizens to new risks.
Those normative questions must be examined separately.
At this stage, we merely observe the phenomenon.
The people continue searching.
The institution changes.
The First Proposition Begins to Emerge
Here, then, we encounter the first crack in an assumption long held within the legal profession.
For generations, many of us have spoken as though the courts enjoyed a natural monopoly over justice.
Professor Agea’s observations suggest otherwise.
His work does not deny the constitutional authority of the courts.
Nor does it diminish the importance of the rule of law.
Instead, it quietly reveals a social reality that constitutional texts alone cannot fully explain:
Citizens possess agency.
When confidence diminishes, they choose differently.
That choice may lead them towards traditional mechanisms.
Towards religious authority.
Towards community elders.
Towards public campaigns.
Towards digital platforms.
Or towards innovations that have not yet fully emerged.
The destination is secondary.
The movement is primary.
The Lesson for the Justice Sector
If Professor Agea’s observations are accepted, then every justice institution should pause before asking:
“How do we preserve our authority?”
A more urgent question presents itself.
How do we preserve the confidence that gives our authority practical meaning in the lives of those we serve?
Authority may be conferred by law.
Confidence cannot.
Confidence must be earned.
Maintained.
And, when lost,
patiently rebuilt.
A Bridge to the Next Witness
Professor Agea has shown us that institutional migration is not a speculative fear.
It is an observable social phenomenon.
The question that now confronts us is whether this pattern is confined to indigenous communities, or whether it has begun to manifest itself elsewhere, under different names and through different technologies.
To answer that question, we must call our second witness.
Not from the villages of Lango.
But from the constitutional architecture of the Republic itself.
For even as communities quietly sought justice through indigenous mechanisms, the Judiciary of Uganda was itself beginning to recognise that the administration of justice could no longer be understood through the courtroom alone.
It is to that witness that we now turn.
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Enen Ambrose. Advocate
Member, Judiciary Affairs Committee,
Uganda Law Society
& Founder–Enen Legal World
Justice Ignited. Courage Unleashed.
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