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Category: Politics

  • FROM BROWN TO PLESSY: WHY FARUKU MAY BECOME THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL CONSTITUTIONAL REGRESSION OF THE LAST TWO DECADES

    FROM BROWN TO PLESSY: WHY FARUKU MAY BECOME THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL CONSTITUTIONAL REGRESSION OF THE LAST TWO DECADES

    Constitutionalism, Deterrence and the Price of Violating Non-Derogable Rights

    Constitutional courts shape legal culture. Some decisions expand the reach of rights. Others contract it. Some become monuments to constitutional progress. Others become warnings from history.

    The Constitutional Court’s decision in Faruku Muhamed & Others v Attorney General belongs to the latter category.

    Indeed, it may come to be remembered as one of the most consequential constitutional regressions since the promulgation of the 1995 Constitution.

    The judgment has already generated intense debate. Supporters praise it as a restoration of balance between the rights of accused persons and society’s legitimate interest in the prosecution of crime. Critics view it as a retreat from the robust protection of non-derogable rights that Ugandan courts painstakingly developed over the last two decades.

    I count myself among the latter.

    Not because I underestimate the importance of criminal accountability.

    Not because I believe every constitutional violation should automatically free every accused person.

    But because I believe the Court has fundamentally misunderstood the constitutional function of consequences.

    At its heart, Faruku is not a case about criminals.

    It is a case about incentives.

    It is a case about deterrence.

    It is a case about the price the State must pay when it violates the Constitution.

    And once one understands that, the implications become profoundly unsettling.

    THE FORGOTTEN PURPOSE OF SECTION 11(2)

    Much of the commentary surrounding Section 11(2) of the Human Rights (Enforcement) Act proceeds from a mistaken premise.

    The provision was never principally about rewarding accused persons.

    It was never principally about frustrating criminal trials.

    Nor was it intended to create technical escape routes for the guilty.

    Its purpose was institutional.

    Its purpose was preventative.

    Its purpose was deterrent.

    Every legal system creates incentives.

    A police officer deciding how to obtain evidence responds to incentives.

    An investigator deciding whether to respect constitutional safeguards responds to incentives.

    A security agency deciding whether compliance is worth the inconvenience responds to incentives.

    The genius of Section 11(2) was that it altered those incentives.

    It communicated a simple message:

    If you violate non-derogable rights, you may lose the prosecution altogether.

    That message did not exist to protect criminals.

    It existed to discipline power.

    It existed to ensure that constitutional compliance became the cheapest option available to the State.

    The Court has now substantially weakened that discipline.

    THE DOCTRINAL ERROR: WHEN A DETERRENT BECOMES A SUGGESTION

    The central problem with Faruku is doctrinal before it is political.

    Section 11(2) was not merely a remedy available to an accused person after a violation had occurred.

    It was a prophylactic rule.

    A constitutional deterrent.

    A bright-line consequence designed to influence institutional behaviour before violations occurred.

    The provision did not merely compensate victims.

    It regulated power.

    By emphasizing alternative remedies such as compensation, civil suits, administrative sanctions and criminal proceedings against offending officers, the Court transformed a deterrent into a suggestion.

    That distinction matters.

    A deterrent commands compliance.

    A suggestion invites balancing.

    A deterrent changes behaviour.

    A suggestion merely expresses disapproval.

    The practical consequence is that the constitutional cost of violating non-derogable rights has been reduced.

    Rights rarely disappear overnight.

    More often, they remain on paper while their practical force is quietly diminished.

    That is why Faruku is so significant.

    The issue is not whether rights still exist.

    The issue is whether violating them has become cheaper.

    ARTICLE 44 WAS WRITTEN IN BLOOD, NOT THEORY

    Perhaps the most troubling feature of the judgment is its apparent detachment from the constitutional history that produced Article 44 itself.

    Article 44 did not emerge from academic theory.

    It did not emerge from abstract constitutional philosophy.

    It emerged from Uganda’s encounter with arbitrary power.

    It emerged from detention without trial.

    It emerged from torture.

    It emerged from disappearances.

    It emerged from constitutional crises that taught painful lessons about what happens when power operates without meaningful restraint.

    The framers of the 1995 Constitution understood something simple:

    Power rarely restrains itself.

    That understanding explains why certain rights were elevated beyond ordinary balancing exercises.

    The Constitution does not merely describe freedom from torture as important.

    It describes it as non-derogable.

    That distinction is critical.

    A right that may be balanced against competing interests is fundamentally different from a right that may not.

    The Court repeatedly invokes society’s interest in prosecution.

    But Article 44 itself represents a balancing exercise already undertaken by the framers.

    They considered the demands of security.

    They considered public order.

    They considered law enforcement.

    They nevertheless chose to place certain rights beyond derogation.

    The question therefore is not whether courts should rebalance those interests today.

    The question is whether courts are free to rebalance what the Constitution has already balanced.

    That question deserves far greater attention than it has thus far received.

    LEGAL CULTURE: A PERSONAL OBSERVATION

    Years ago, I appeared before a Chief Magistrate in a criminal matter that had stagnated for nearly three years.

    I argued that the accused person’s constitutional right to a fair and speedy trial had been violated.

    The Magistrate looked at me and asked:

    “Are you sure the Constitution says the hearing must be speedy?”

    I answered in the affirmative.

    A copy of the Constitution was produced.

    The word was found.

    The Magistrate then asked:

    “But Counsel, why are you over-lawyering?, I thought you are in a hurry and have other things to do? Me I want to adjourn my matters today and travel for the weekend”

    Many younger lawyers would find that exchange difficult to believe.

    That is precisely the point.

    For the last two decades Uganda’s legal culture has been evolving.

    Slowly.

    Imperfectly.

    Painfully.

    But undeniably.

    Rights increasingly ceased to be aspirations.

    They increasingly became enforceable commands.

    Lawyers became bolder.

    Judges became more receptive.

    Constitutional litigation became more meaningful.

    Decisions such as Uganda Law Society v Attorney General, Uganda vs Ssekabira Robert and 11 others, and others collectively contributed to that transformation.

    The cases were not identical.

    The rights involved were not identical.

    But together they built something larger than individual precedents.

    They built a culture.

    A culture in which State actors increasingly understood that constitutional violations carry consequences.

    Faruku teaches a different lesson.

    THE COURT’S BALANCING EXERCISE

    To criticize the judgment honestly, one must first acknowledge its strongest argument.

    Society possesses a legitimate interest in the prosecution of crime.

    Victims possess rights.

    Public safety matters.

    Few reasonable people would celebrate a system in which serious offenders automatically escape accountability because constitutional violations occurred during investigation.

    That concern deserves respect.

    I do not pretend the question is easy.

    There are undoubtedly hard cases at the margins.

    But the answer to a difficult question is not to abandon deterrence altogether.

    The Court’s solution effectively transfers the cost of constitutional violations away from the State and onto the victim of those violations.

    The Court assures us that alternative remedies remain available.

    Compensation.

    Civil litigation.

    Administrative sanctions.

    Criminal prosecution of offending officers.

    In theory, this appears balanced.

    In practice, it appears detached from reality.

    How many torture survivors successfully litigate compensation claims after years of detention, trial, imprisonment, poverty and trauma?

    How many possess the resources necessary to commence fresh proceedings against the very institutions that violated their rights?

    The remedy exists on paper.

    Life exists in reality.

    The two are not always the same.

    THE REALITY PROBLEM

    Constitutional theory cannot be divorced from constitutional reality.

    Uganda is not debating torture in a vacuum.

    Uganda is not debating arbitrary detention in a vacuum.

    Uganda is not debating abuse of power in a vacuum.

    We are debating these issues within a society where allegations of torture remain common, where unlawful detention continues to generate public controversy and where citizens routinely question whether constitutional safeguards are sufficient to restrain State power.

    Perhaps the most chilling symbol of this reality is linguistic.

    Ugandans now speak of “drones” not as aircraft but as a particular form of feared encounter with power.

    Think about that.

    Think about how much constitutional failure must occur before a society casually incorporates the language of disappearance into everyday conversation.

    That normalization did not happen by accident.

    It happened because constitutional safeguards increasingly appeared uncertain.

    The question is whether Faruku strengthens those safeguards or weakens them.

    I fear it does the latter.

    FROM BROWN TO PLESSY

    The analogy may appear provocative.

    It is intended to be.

    In 1896, the United States Supreme Court decided Plessy v Ferguson.

    The Court did not abolish equality.

    It merely reinterpreted it in a manner that dramatically reduced its practical force.

    Rights remained on paper.

    Their effectiveness diminished in reality.

    Fifty-eight years later, Brown v Board of Education repudiated that approach.

    The lesson is not about race.

    The lesson is about constitutional trajectories.

    Constitutional progress is not inevitable.

    Rights expand.

    Rights contract.

    Courts advance liberty.

    Courts retreat from it.

    Faruku does not abolish Article 44.

    It does something more subtle.

    And therefore potentially more consequential.

    It preserves the right while reducing the consequences of violating it.

    That is the structural similarity.

    In neither case was the constitutional right formally erased.

    Instead, the practical cost of ignoring it became negotiable.

    That is how constitutional regressions often occur.

    Not through dramatic declarations.

    Not through open hostility to rights.

    But through incremental reductions in consequence.

    History teaches that constitutional decline rarely begins when courts announce that rights no longer matter.

    It begins when courts assure us that rights still matter while simultaneously reducing the cost of violating them.

    CONCLUSION

    The Supreme Court may reverse Faruku.

    It may not.

    That question will be answered in due course.

    The more profound question concerns constitutional culture.

    For two decades Uganda appeared to be moving toward a constitutional order in which rights carried consequences and power carried limits.

    Faruku signals movement in the opposite direction.

    Whether that signal becomes a turning point or merely a temporary detour remains unknown.

    History will answer that question.

    The rest of us must live through it.

    If future generations inherit a stronger constitutional culture, Faruku will be remembered as a wrong turn that was eventually corrected.

    If they inherit a weaker one, where torture remains illegal but increasingly inexpensive for the State, they may remember it differently.

    Not as the day constitutional rights disappeared.

    But as the day violating them became cheaper.

    Not as the day the Constitution died.

    But as the day it was asked to whisper where once it could roar.

    DISCLAIMER:

    The contents of this Blog are not intended to be used as a substitute for legal advice. The author shall not accept liability for use of the contents of this Blog as legal advice. Readers are encuraged to consult qualified advocates for real life situations for legal advice.

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    Independent institutional critique and advocacy for a radical overhaul of legal culture require time, deep research, and uncompromised independence. If these narratives bring value to your legal journey or challenge your perspective, please visit our HOME PAGE to see how you can support this platform directly and keep the critique fierce and relentless.

    Enen Ambrose. Advocate

    Member, Judiciary Affairs Committee,

    Uganda Law Society

    & Founder–Enen Legal World

  • Chronicles of His Worship Mulyanyama — Episode 3

    Chronicles of His Worship Mulyanyama — Episode 3

    When “Just Cause” Entered the Registry

    Author’s Note: The Chronicles of His Worship Mulyanyama is a serialized literary commentary designed to constructively critique the institutional and structural implications of the Magistrates Courts (Amendment) Act, No. 6 of 2026. This work is a creative exploration of the human infrastructure behind public service and is not intended to ridicule, embarrass, or undermine the integrity of the Judiciary.

    The brown envelope had not lied.

    TRANSFER OF FILES – FOR JUST CAUSE.
    No explanation. No appeal. Just a signature from the Chief Magistrate and a list of file numbers.

    Among them: File No. 43. The twins fighting over cassava. Imat Nekolina’s envelope. Ocen Okello’s breach of contract case for the supply of beans to Kec Primary School.

    All of them, transferred. To whom? For what reason? The envelope did not say.

    Mulyanyama set the letter down. He did not call the Chief Magistrate. He simply stared at his phone.

    Counsel Ogwang Adede woke before sunrise.

    He had spent 200,000 shillings on fuel the previous evening – a calculated investment. Today, he would drive from Lira to Omwonyo‑le for Ocen Okello’s case. Four years of beans. Four years of adjournments. Today, he would close the defence under Order 17 Rule 4.

    He checked his phone.

    A message from the headmaster: “Fees balance remains. Your son cannot sit exams.”

    He silenced it. First, court. Then fees.

    Then he opened the Lira High Court WhatsApp group.

    NOTICE: The Honourable Judge will not sit this week. He has been deployed to Omwonyo‑le for a donor‑funded SGBV session. All matters stand adjourned.

    He refreshed. The Omwonyo‑le Magistrates Court group had a new notice:

    NOTICE: His Worship Mulyanyama has been designated Registrar for the forthcoming SGBV session. Additionally, a donor‑funded plea bargaining session will run for two weeks. No judicial officer will be at Omwonyo‑le during this period.

    He scrolled further.

    UPDATE: All other magistrates and the Registrar have travelled for a Judiciary conference. Only those excused for donor conditionalities remain in session.

    Counsel Ogwang Adede stared at the screen.

    In Lira – no Judge.
    In Omwonyo‑le – no Mulyanyama.
    No Magistrate. No Registrar. No court.
    Two weeks.

    He had spent 200,000 shillings on fuel. But that was not the worst of it.

    That morning, he had been expecting a deposit of 30,000,000 shillings in taxed costs from a judgment debtor – Okullo Aram. The matter was coming up for Notice to Show Cause before the Registrar of the High Court in Lira. Okullo had called last evening, panicking, begging not to be thrown into civil prison. He was prepared to deposit the money in front of the Registrar.

    Then Okullo sent a message: a photo of a notice from the Registrar’s chambers. The Registrar had travelled to Kampala overnight – for a donor‑funded workshop on case management.

    After sending the notice, Okullo’s phone went silent.

    Counsel Ogwang Adede called back. Twice. Three times. Nothing.

    Later, he learned that Okullo Aram had five children in university and three in secondary school. The money that was meant for taxed costs had been redirected – to tuition fees, to accommodation, to books.

    The debtor had not fled. He had simply reprioritised. And the law could not touch him – because the Registrar was not there to hear the Notice to Show Cause.

    His clerk’s salary would wait.
    His legal assistant’s salary would wait.
    The headmaster’s message about his son’s exams would not wait.

    Then his firm WhatsApp group buzzed.

    A calling letter. From His Worship Munyakuzi, Chief Magistrate of Oneka Iden – the Chief Magisterial area under which Omwonyo‑le fell.

    TRANSFER OF FILE – FOR JUST CAUSE.
    On the court’s own motion, Ocen Okello’s case is transferred to my court for hearing.

    No application from any party. No consent. No explanation.
    Just just cause.

    Counsel read it twice. His hands did not shake. They had done this before.

    Mulyanyama had also seen the letter.

    He picked up his phone and called Munyakuzi.

    “Sir, with respect… those are live matters. Judicial independence –”

    A pause. Then Munyakuzi laughed.

    “Worship, did you not read Section 217A of the amendment? I have powers to transfer those files to my Court.”

    The line went dead.

    Mulyanyama stared at his phone. The ground at Omwonyo‑le had swallowed an axe. Now the law was swallowing itself.

    Ocen Okello did not learn about the transfer from a noticeboard.

    He learned it from Alyek Molly.

    He had not even reached the bank. His Boxer motorcycle was still coughing dust somewhere between Abako and Oneka Iden when his phone vibrated.

    He smiled when he saw the name. Alyek Molly – Registry. He answered immediately.

    “My daughter… how is today?”

    For a second, Alyek said nothing. Then her voice came – soft, tired, almost apologetic.

    “Mzee… don’t come to court.”

    Silence.

    “I have already told your lawyer.”

    Ocen slowed the motorcycle. “What now?”

    Alyek looked through the registry window before answering. “His Worship has two critical assignments.” She lowered her voice. “He has been designated Registrar for the SGBV session… and after that… another plea bargain project. Two hundred files. Fifteen days.”

    Ocen said nothing.

    Alyek swallowed. “Mzee… save your fuel.”

    The line went dead.

    Forty minutes later, Ocen Okello sat inside the office of the loan officer.

    Tie. Ledger. Calculator. No smile.

    The file marked MORTGAGE RECOVERY – FINAL NOTICE lay open on the desk.

    Ocen removed his cap. Held it in both hands. And began pleading.

    “Sir… please do not sell my house.”

    He swallowed. “The case is very near judgment, I promise.”

    The loan officer said nothing. So Ocen continued.

    “My lawyer says… no more than one month.”

    He pointed weakly toward Omwonyo‑le. “The court has some delays… delays I do not fully understand… delays I cannot even explain properly…”

    Just then – his phone vibrated again.

    This time, Counsel Ogwang Adede.

    He opened the message.

    Brown envelope. Three words.

    TRANSFERRED FOR JUST CAUSE.

    Ocen read it once. Read it twice. Then slowly looked back at the loan officer… and for the first time in four years… did not know which debt was more dangerous – the one inside the bank, or the one inside the court.

    By lunchtime, Omwonyo‑le was already whispering.

    The new Chairperson of the School Management Committee of Kec Primary School – the same school that had eaten Ocen Okello’s beans – was an old boy of Chief Magistrate Munyakuzi.

    In Omwonyo‑le, rumours travelled faster than judgments.
    And this rumour had teeth.

    “He is willing to vouch for his old buddy,” Alyek Molly heard from a clerk in Oneka Iden. “To save the school from an old crippling debt.”

    Alyek said nothing. She was still calculating her mother’s medication. Friday’s tuition. The per diem that would now not come.

    That evening, Mulyanyama sat in his rented room above the pharmacy in Oneka Iden.

    The brown envelope still lay on the table.
    Open. Unfolded. Unanswered.

    The names stared back at him.
    Imat Nekolina. Ocen Okello.
    Four years. Red ribbons. Borrowed fuel. Dead witnesses.
    Transferred. For just cause.

    His phone vibrated.
    Counsel Ogwang Adede.

    Mulyanyama stared at the screen for two rings. Then answered.

    No greetings. Just breathing.

    Then Counsel spoke.

    “Worship… what is going on?”

    Silence.

    “What happened?”

    Another silence. Then the question that hit harder than any objection ever raised in court:

    “Who complained?”

    Mulyanyama looked again at the brown envelope. Then at the ceiling. Then finally spoke. Quietly. Almost apologetically.

    “Counsel… I honestly have no idea.”

    A pause. Then –

    “Just orders from above.”

    Neither man spoke again. For a few seconds, all that remained between lawyer and magistrate was breathing.

    Then the line went dead.

    And for the first time since the amendment, His Worship Mulyanyama realised something far more dangerous than corruption:

    Sometimes a file is not stolen. Sometimes… it is simply called upward.

    Before you blame a magistrate for “delayed justice”… ask two questions:

    Who funded the last special session in your court? And how many times has a file been transferred – without your consent – “for just cause”?

    The system is not broken.
    The system is fully booked.

    Enen Ambrose

    Advocate

    Member: Judiciary Affairs Committee

    Uganda Law Society,

    For feedback or comments: enen@enenlegalworld.com

    If you missed the start of this journey, you can catch up on the systemic breakdown of the Magistrates Courts in Chronicles of His Worship Mulyanyama — Episode 2

    Legal Disclaimer Fiction & Non-Defamation Notice:

    This post is a pure work of fiction and creative literature. The characters, dialogue, specific incidents, and settings—including the character of His Worship Mulyanyama and the location of Omwonyo-le Magistrates Court—are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance or exact matches to actual persons, living or dead, real-life judicial officers, or specific ongoing cases is entirely coincidental. This text is created solely for the purpose of systemic legislative critique and systemic advocacy; it is not maliciously constructed, nor should it be interpreted as an attempt to defame, misrepresent, or malign any living individual or public office holder.

    The legal references in this Series is for information purposes only and is not intended to be used as a substitute for legal advice. The author does not assume responsibility or admit liability arising from the use of the contents of this blog as legal advice.

    The author strongly encourages readers to consult a licensed attorney for specific context related legal advice.

    FUEL THE MOVEMENT

    Independent institutional critique and advocacy for a radical overhaul of legal culture require time, deep research, and uncompromised independence. If these narratives bring value to your legal journey or challenge your perspective, please visit our HOME PAGE to see how you can support this platform directly and keep the critique fierce and relentless.

    Enen Ambrose. Advocate & Founder–Enen Legal World

  • Chronicles of His Worship Mulyanyama — Episode II

    Chronicles of His Worship Mulyanyama — Episode II

    The Mobile Court That Ate the Diary

    Author’s Note: The Chronicles of His Worship Mulyanyama is a serialized literary commentary designed to constructively critique the institutional and structural implications of the Magistrates Courts (Amendment) Act, No. 6 of 2026. This work is a creative exploration of the human infrastructure behind public service and is not intended to ridicule, embarrass, or undermine the integrity of the Judiciary.

    At 9:43am, the white Land Cruiser rolled into Omwonyo‑le.

    Nobody looked surprised.
    Not the warders.
    Not the litigants.
    Not even His Worship Mulyanyama.

    Only Alyek Molly looked up from the registry.

    She had not been paid in three months.

    That morning, before leaving home, she had crushed her mother’s last blood‑pressure tablet into halves – so it could survive two more days.

    Her tuition at Kampala International University (Mbale campus) was due on Friday. Second year, Bachelor of Laws. She still kept her old Diploma in Law transcript folded inside her registry drawer – next to unpaid electricity receipts.

    When she saw the Land Cruiser, she did not smile.
    But her shoulders relaxed. Just a little.

    The memo was short. Cold. Typed.

    “All ordinary cause‑list matters stand adjourned pending implementation of the Mobile Justice Outreach Session.”

    Fifteen days.

    Ocen Okello closed his eyes.

    Four years.
    Four.
    Not because his case was difficult.
    Because the defendant – a government primary school – had failed to bring its final two witnesses. Again.

    The first adjournment: His Worship Mulyanyama had been away at donor‑funded SGBV training.
    The next three: the school simply came empty‑handed. Each time, the defence begged. Each time, His Worship adjourned – in the interest of justice.
    Each time – no costs.

    Counsel Ogwang Adede had financed this trip from Lira by himself.

    This time, his client simply could not raise it.

    Not because he did not want justice.
    Because justice was competing with school fees.

    With last month’s Bolicap debt – the money he had borrowed to bring both himself and counsel to this same court… for a hearing that never took off.

    With the money still owed to Okello Ajing, who had rescued him that same morning when every other door had gone silent.

    With sugar.
    With paraffin.
    With soap.

    And somewhere inside that collapsing arithmetic… sat the question of whether justice was becoming more expensive than the debt he had come to recover.

    So Counsel Ogwang Adede came anyway.
    On his own fuel.
    On his own time.
    On his own thinning patience.

    And on the dangerous assumption… that today, after four years, somebody inside Omwonyo‑le would finally be ready to finish a case.

    Today, Counsel Ogwang Adede had come ready – not prepared to swallow one more adjournment dressed as “the interest of justice.”

    He had the court file under one arm.
    His diary in the other hand.

    And in the margins of his notebook – authorities, annotations, and one final prayer:

    Order 17 Rule 4 of the Civil Procedure Rules.

    Close the defence.
    Take oral submissions.
    Fix the matter for judgment.

    Four years was enough.

    Today he had not come to negotiate with delay.
    Today… he had come to end it.

    Then Alyek Molly pinned the memo.
    And nobody entered Court No. 2.

    Imat Nekolina did not understand the white car.

    She only knew that her case was not today. Again.
    She approached Alyek Molly. “When?”

    Alyek shrugged. “After the mobile court.”

    “My witness,” Imat said quietly, “the doctor says he has less than fourteen days.”

    Alyek said nothing. She had heard this before too.
    But her mind was already calculating: fifteen days of per diem. Enough for her mother’s medication. Enough for Friday’s tuition.
    She did not wish for the donor to come. But she could not afford to wish otherwise.

    Mulyanyama watched from his chambers.

    He saw Counsel Ogwang Adede standing on the cracked steps – file, diary, notebook – the oral application still just a prayer in his head.
    He saw Imat Nekolina’s face.
    He saw Ocen Okello kick his Boxer motorcycle back to life – and ride away without looking back.

    The Visitor was already inside Court No. 1, setting up his laptop.

    The donor had paid for fifteen days.
    Per diem. Transport. Lunch allowance.
    Enough… to make resistance expensive.

    That evening, Mulyanyama texted a friend:
    “They call it access to justice. I call it access to their priorities.”

    The friend replied: “Did you eat?”

    Mulyanyama did not answer.

    Before you blame a magistrate for “delayed justice”… ask two questions:

    Who funded the last special session in your court? And how many times did the government defendant adjourn without cost?

    Two days later, another envelope arrived.

    Not white.
    Brown.
    Government brown.

    The subject line read:

    TRANSFER OF FILES – FOR JUST CAUSE.

    Mulyanyama read it once.
    Read it twice.

    Then looked at his phone.

    One message waited.
    Just three words.

    Did you eat?

    Institutions are not always captured by force.
    Sometimes… they are rented.
    One allowance at a time.

    Enen Ambrose, Enen Legal World

    Member: Judiciary Affairs Committee

    Uganda Law Society

    Enen Legal World.

    For Feedback or comments: enen@enenlegalworld.com

    Legal Disclaimer

    Fiction & Non-Defamation Notice:

    This post is a pure work of fiction and creative literature. The characters, dialogue, specific incidents, and settings—including the character of His Worship Mulyanyama and the location of Omwonyo-le Magistrates Court—are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance or exact matches to actual persons, living or dead, real-life judicial officers, or specific ongoing cases is entirely coincidental. This text is created solely for the purpose of systemic legislative critique and systemic advocacy; it is not maliciously constructed, nor should it be interpreted as an attempt to defame, misrepresent, or malign any living individual or public office holder.

    The legal references in this Series is for information purposes only and is not intended to be used as a subtitute for legal advice. The author does not assume responsibility or admit liability arising from the use of the contents of this blog as legal advice.

    The author strongly encourages readers to consult a licensed attorney for specific context related legal advice.

    If you missed Episode 1 of this series, You can access it here: Chronciles of His Worship Mulyanyama Episode 1

  • Of Gold, Dairy, and Slow Poison: Elison Karuhanga and the Perils of Development Without Accountability

    Of Gold, Dairy, and Slow Poison: Elison Karuhanga and the Perils of Development Without Accountability

    Enen Legal World Logo

    There is a seductive danger in confusing development with institutional health.

    Yes, Uganda has grown sectors.
    Yes, milk production rose.
    Yes, roads were built.
    Yes, factories emerged.

    Let us even grant these achievements at their most generous interpretation, though many of the surrounding statistics and political narratives remain fiercely contested. The deeper question lies elsewhere.

    Ancient empires also built roads.

    The question is whether those roads outlasted the emperor, and in more recent history, whether the institutions managing them answered to citizens or merely to the political survival of one man.”

    That is where Elison Karuhanga’s argument becomes deeply troubling.

    Not because it defends industrialisation. Industrialisation is necessary.

    But because it quietly asks Ugandans to romanticise concentrated power itself.

    The article repeatedly frames scepticism toward entrenched political authority as elite cynicism, as though accountability were merely an inconvenience imposed by intellectual spectators standing outside history.

    Yet history teaches something far less flattering.

    Apartheid South Africa built one of the continent’s most sophisticated industrial economies. Gaddafi’s Libya produced impressive welfare indicators and modern infrastructure. Mobutu’s Zaire cultivated the imagery of national grandeur and developmental ambition.

    Yet history eventually exposed the same weakness in each case: institutions had become subordinate to personalities, patronage, or exclusionary systems of power.

    Infrastructure is not self-validating.

    The real question is never whether factories, highways, dams, or industrial parks exist. The deeper question is whether the institutions beneath those projects remain independent enough to survive the men who built them.

    Development without accountability does not eliminate instability.

    It postpones it.

    And when accountability weakens long enough, entitlement emerges. From entitlement comes impunity. And from impunity comes institutional decay.

    That is precisely the warning at the heart of Mahmood Mamdani’s 2025 book, Slow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State. Mamdani’s argument is not that Uganda failed because it lacked projects or economic ambition. It is that the post-independence dream was gradually dismantled through tribalised politics, institutional corrosion, political violence, and the fragmentation of citizenship itself.

    A country may increase exports while weakening citizenship.

    That is not transformation.

    That is deferred fragility.

    And perhaps nowhere is this contradiction more revealing than within the intellectual class now defending presidential mythology in the name of developmental realism.

    Many of us were repeatedly lectured about the supposed “neutrality” of the Uganda Law Society whenever lawyers confronted excesses of state power. We were told institutions must remain above politics.

    Yet neutrality now appears remarkably flexible when the task is constructing emotional narratives around presidential permanence and historical indispensability.

    One begins to suspect that neutrality was never truly about insulating institutions from politics, but about regulating the direction in which criticism could travel.

    That selective application is itself part of the institutional decay being ignored.

    When institutions of accountability suspend their scepticism in order to celebrate power, they accelerate the very “slow poison” they should be resisting.

    And this is why the romantic language of “stubborn men who shape history” should concern us more than inspire us.

    History is full of stubborn men.

    Some built nations.

    Others merely built systems too personalised to survive them.

    Uganda’s tragedy has never been a shortage of ambitious rulers.

    It has been the absence of institutions strong enough to survive them, and disciplined enough to tell them no.

    And if we are to have the rule of law rather than the rule of men with a gun, a Bible, and a pen, then a few stubborn men and women must demand that development be built on accountability, not just the romanticisation of power.

    The roots of accountability are bitter, but the fruits are sweet.

    This, fellow countrymen and women, is my contribution to that cause.

    Enen Ambrose.

    Advocate. 

    For feedback or comments: enen@enenlegalworld.com

  • The Quiet Violence of Procedure: When Digital Service Serves No One

    The Quiet Violence of Procedure: When Digital Service Serves No One

    Enen Legal World Logo.


    There is a quiet violence in procedure. It does not shout. It does not argue. It simply assumes; and in that assumption, rights collapse without anyone noticing. This is exactly what happened in two recent High Court decisions: Visare Uganda Ltd vs Festus Katerega T/A Quickway Auctioneers and 3 others. A copy of it can be accessed here:

    Visare Uganda Limited v Katerega Others (Miscellaneous Application 2855 of 2023) 2024 UGCommC 38 (19 February 2024) 2Download

    and: Western Cable Company Limited vs. Juliet Namuli Asiya and 7 others. A copy of the rulinf can be accessed here:

    Ruling MA 2289 of 2025 Western Cables(1)Download



    A case is filed. A hearing date is fixed. Somewhere deep within a digital system, a notice is uploaded. The law nods in satisfaction: service has been effected. The machinery moves. The courtroom sits. The judge writes. And somewhere else, perhaps across the city, perhaps across a fragile internet connection, a litigant knows nothing.

    We call this progress.

    We call this efficiency.

    We even call it justice.

    In the recent ruling of the High Court of Uganda in Misc. Application No. 2289 of 2025, the court took the position that once a hearing notice is posted onto ECCMIS, service is complete. It held that it is not mandatory for a party to actually receive an email or SMS notification, so long as the system reflects that service was effected.

    The implication is stark: the burden shifts entirely to the litigant or counsel to constantly monitor the system. Failure to do so is fatal. A case may be dismissed. Rights may evaporate. And yet, in the eyes of the law, nothing has gone wrong.

    But open justice demands something far more stubborn, far more human. It demands not that proceedings merely exist in public form, but that those whose rights are at stake are actually present; or at the very least, actually aware. The old wisdom insisted that justice must be seen to be done. It did not imagine a world where justice could be technically visible yet practically invisible; where a notice exists, but never reaches; where a hearing occurs, but never touches the party it condemns.

    And this is not an abstract concern. It is a doctrinal one.

    The Supreme Court of Uganda, in Geoffrey Gatete & Another v William Kyobe, confronted a similar question under the language of “deemed good service.” The Court drew a careful and deliberate distinction; one that modern digital procedure now risks erasing.

    It held that “deemed service” is a legal fiction, a procedural convenience that allows courts to proceed even where actual notice may not be proven. But it went further to warn that such service does not necessarily amount to “effective service.” For service to be effective, it must achieve its intended purpose: to bring the proceedings to the attention of the party.

    A copy of the decision in Gatete can be accessed here:

    geoffrey-gatete-and-another-v-william-kyobe-2007-ugsc-7-21-september-200 (2)Download



    This distinction is not semantic. It is foundational.

    Because once the law accepts that something may be “deemed” without being real, it must also accept the consequences; that the fiction may fail in practice. And where it fails, justice demands correction.

    Yes, there will be cases where a litigant deliberately avoids monitoring the system. But the system cannot punish the many for the bad faith of the few; especially when actual notice remains technically possible.

    Yet the modern system presses on, collapsing this distinction. ECCMIS becomes both the record and the proof, both the act and its consequence. Once a notice is uploaded, the law assumes its journey is complete.

    But a system is not a voice. A database is not a message. A record is not communication.

    And so we arrive at a troubling convergence: a digital architecture that satisfies procedural form while undermining substantive awareness.

    Context makes this even more urgent. Even in Kampala, internet access is not constant. Connectivity fluctuates. Costs are high. Power is unreliable. To build a legal system on the assumption that litigants and advocates will perpetually monitor an online platform is to design justice for an ideal world, not the real one.

    What then becomes of open justice?

    It remains, perhaps, in architecture. The courtroom doors are still open. The rulings are still written. The processes are still documented. But the litigant; the very person for whom the system exists; may never arrive, not out of defiance, but out of ignorance.

    And in that moment, something profound happens.

    Justice is no longer denied loudly. It is denied quietly.

    Not in secrecy, but in silence.

    Not by concealment, but by assumption.

    Justice does not only die in closed courtrooms. It also dies in silent systems, where notices exist, but never reach.

    This is not an argument against technology. It is an argument against unquestioned technology. Against systems that replace human communication with automated presumption. Against a jurisprudence that confuses efficiency with fairness.

    The answer is neither retreat nor resistance. It is correction.

    If ECCMIS is to be the backbone of modern judicial administration, then it must evolve beyond being a passive repository into an active communicator. It must speak, not just store. It must reach, not just record.

    External notification systems are not luxuries; they are necessities. SMS alerts. Email notifications. Web based and Android Push Notifications, Real-time prompts that move beyond the confines of the system and into the lived reality of the user. And more than that, they must not be optional embellishments. They must be integral guarantees, designed to ensure that service is not merely deemed, but actually effected.

    The Judiciary and the architects behind ECCMIS stand at a critical threshold. They have built the infrastructure. Now they must build the connection.

    Because the law may deem service to be good, but justice demands that service be real.

    A system that merely stores notices, without ensuring they reach those whose rights are at stake, does not advance justice, it endangers it. In a jurisdiction where access to digital infrastructure is uneven, to insist that litigants must constantly patrol an online platform is to replace fairness with fiction.

    Technology must serve justice, not obscure it.

    There is an old wisdom in scripture: No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bed. Instead, they set it on a stand, so that those who enter may see.

    ECCMIS is that lamp, lit, visible in theory. But when a notice sits in a database without actively reaching the litigant, we have placed it under the bed. The light exists. It just does not shine where it is needed most. (Mark 4:21)

    Let ECCMIS evolve, blending its internal efficiency with robust external communication, ensuring that every litigant is not merely assumed to know, but is given a real opportunity to know.

    For if justice is to remain open, it must also remain visible.

    Otherwise, quietly and without protest,
    justice will die in the darkness of its own systems.
    -THE END-

    Disclaimers:

    This Blog is not an attack on the Judicial officers who handed down the two decisions criticised above. It is not an attack on the institution of the Judiciary or EECMIS developers. It is intended to spark conversations to make E-Justice and the whole E-Government Digital Transformation a complete and wholesome journey and / or experience. 

    This Blog is not to be substituted for or taken for legal advice. The author does not accept responsibility or liability for damage suffered as a result of its use as legal advice. Readers are encouraged to consult a qualified and licensed attorney for situation specific legal advice.

    Enen Ambrose. (Personal Archive)

    Enen Ambrose

    Member, Judiciary Affairs Committee of

    Uganda Law Society.

    For feedback or questions, write to: enen@enenlegalworld.com

  • EPISODE 3: WHILE THE PETITION SLEPT

    EPISODE 3: WHILE THE PETITION SLEPT

    Enen Legal World Logo


    If you are joining us for the first time: In Episode 1, we met Mzee Zakayo, who never built a granary but ate from the labor of others. His son Okello Anyapo inherited his appetite but not his cattle, and emptied his uncle Owera’s granary because he was given access without rules. In Episode 2, we lifted our eyes to Uganda’s constitutional granary, built in 1995, and watched Parliament abandon its duty to build walls around it. We saw the seven famines: the Shs 763 billion justice tax, the incompetence shield, the two-man cartel, the executive pocket veto, the criminalization of transparency, the ghost tier of unaccountable actors, and the commission that judges itself.

    THIS IS THE SOIL FROM WHICH ULS CONSTITUTIONAL PETITION NO. 12 OF 2025: UGANDA LAW SOCIETY VS ATTORNEY GENERAL ROSE

    The petition was filed. The Application for a temporary injunction to halt Judicial appointments pending disposal of the main petition; The arguments were made. The rot was laid bare.

    And the Constitutional Court is in no hurry.

    The cause list does not call it. The months pass. The granary empties further.

    Every day the petition sleeps is a day Okello eats.

    Every delay is a verdict delivered without judgment, a verdict that says: this urgency is not our urgency.

    The villagers are watching the courthouse door, just as they watch the granary door.

    And the door does not open.

    WHILE THE PETITION SLEPT

    An urgent Constitutional Application, Application No. 11 of 2025, was filed alongside the main petition. It asked the court to halt all judicial appointments pending the determination of the substantive petition.

    Among the grounds: the Judicial Service Commission was unlawfully constituted, missing the two nominees the Constitution requires from the Uganda Law Society.

    The Constitutional Court did not cause-list that application.

    So the appointments proceeded.

    The new Chief Justice, the Hon. Fr. Flavian Zeija, was sworn in.
    The new Principal Judge, the Hon. Judge Jane Francis Abodo, was sworn in.

    Before his elevation, the Hon. Dr. Justice Zeija was the Deputy Chief Justice. In that capacity, he presided over the very Constitutional Court that received Application No. 11 of 2025, the application asking the court to pause appointments, including his own.

    The court did not list the application. No reasons were given. The appointments proceeded.

    In Abongodero, the elders would say: when the man guarding the granary door benefits from what passes through it, the door stays open.

    These are facts. Draw your own conclusions.

    THE POWER TO STOP ALL THIS LIES IN YOUR HANDS AS A CITIZEN AND AJURI CONSTITUENCY IS PROOF OF CONCEPT.

    The Honorable Hamson Obua did not lose by accident.

    He rehearsed monarchy in public. He crowned himself Holy Trinity, God the Father, Honorable Member of Parliament, Ajuri Constituency, God the Son, Government Chief and God the Holy Spirit, Vice National Chairperson of the National Resistance Movement for Northern Uganda of political titles. He spoke succession like family inheritance: Museveni, then Muhoozi, then Muhoozi’s children.

    Ajuri listened.

    They watched soldiers. They watched a disputed poll. They watched power glare at them from armored vehicles.

    And they voted again.

    Twice in under one month.

    History does not always move slowly. Sometimes it slaps.

    Enter Badman Jalameso.

    Teacher. Organizer. Refusal embodied. Not a dynasty. Not a surname throne. Just a man carried by exhaustion with entitlement.

    Badman Jalameso is not a saint. He is a signal.

    The signal is this: voters will rise when the granary stays empty. They will require answers and when the answers are not forthcoming, The leader who fails to answer appropriately will be sent back home.

    —

    **[End of Episode 3]**

  • EPISODE 2: CHRONICLES OF ABONGODERO VILLAGE, THE CONSTITUTIONAL GRANARY.

    EPISODE 2: CHRONICLES OF ABONGODERO VILLAGE, THE CONSTITUTIONAL GRANARY.

    Enen Legal World Logo


    If you are joining us for the first time: In Episode 1, we visited Abongodero, the village named after Mzee Zakayo’s ingenuity. Zakayo never built a granary. He traded cattle for the harvest of others. His son, Okello Anyapo, inherited land but not discipline. When hunger came, his uncle Owera Apur, the only farmer who actually built, opened his granary to him. No rules. Just access. Okello emptied it, smiled, and said: “You allowed me. I merely accessed.” The proverb, which came from the lesson which Abongodero learnt from Okello Anyapo still echoes: You never send a starving man to the granary.

    NOW LIFT YOUR EYES FROM THE VILLAGE.

    In 1995, Uganda built a granary.

    It was called the Constitution. The Constituent Assembly, our Owera, sweated over it. They filled it with grains, cereals and legumes: independence, fairness, accountability, public trust. They stored enough justice to last generations.

    Then they handed the keys to Parliament and said:

    “Guard this. Build walls around it. Regulate who enters, who eats, who guards. Pass laws to guide the President and the Judicial Service Commission in appointing, disciplining, and removing judicial officers.“

    That was the command. Clear. Deliberate. Unambiguous, store the nation’s granary of justice to feed generations and posterity. 

    For thirty years, Parliament has done what the villagers of Abongodero did.

    They admired the granary.

    They walked around it. They named committees after it. They photocopied the Constitution into the Judicial Service Commission Act, sprinkled it with procedure, some insidous confidentiality and went home. They called that a good day’s job and pocketed fat salaries for dereliction of duty.

    They left the rest to the Commission.


    And what is this Commission?

    A body composed largely of insiders. Judges. Judicial actors. The Attorney General, the government’s chief defender, seated comfortably in a structure that decides the fate of judges who sometimes rule against his own client.

    It is as if Owera had not only handed Anyapo the keys, but appointed Anyapo’s hungriest siblings as the oversight committee to stop him from collecting excessive grains from the granary.

    Friends regulating friends.

    Parliament granted access. Parliament abandoned responsibility.

    And Okello entered.

    BEHOLD THE SEVEN FAMINES

    1. The Shs 763 Billion “Justice Tax”

    The Inspectorate of Government’s 2021 “Cost of Corruption” report estimated that Ugandan court users paid Shs 763 billion in bribes—43% of the 2019 justice sector budget.

    Why?

    Because Parliament never built the walls. The 2025 Regulations ensure that bribery does not lead to a judicial officer’s automatic removal. It whispers. It negotiates. It retires quietly with benefits.

    At any judiciary function, you will hear rhetorical sloganeering about zero tolerance to corruption.  The truth is the leadership and the whole institution preaches water and drinks wine. The structure of the Judicial Service Regulations, 2025 creates elite favors for the Judge, Registrars and the Magistrates.


    We hunt “small thieves” in the civil service while the gatekeepers negotiate their exit through cabalist legislation.

    2. The Incompetence Shield

    A High Court judge can be removed for incompetence.

    But for magistrates, the men and women deciding the everyday fate of boda riders, widows, and shopkeepers, incompetence does not lead to automatic removal. Parliament has allowed a regime where the “big fish” are fired for failing, but the “small sharks” are legally protected and recycled.

    Why are judicial officers more “special” than nurses, teachers, engineers or lawyers in the civil service or private sector who are fired the moment they prove incompetent?

    Because Parliament never built the walls.

    3. The “Two-Man” Recruitment Cartel

    Parliament’s silence allowed the Judicial Service Commission to create committees where the quorum is a mere two people, less than 50% of the committee.

    The entire future of Uganda’s Bench can now be decided by two individuals in a private room, bypassing the multi-stakeholder wisdom the Constitution mandates.

    Two people.

    Deciding who judges you.

    And Parliament watches.

    4. The Executive “Pocket Veto”

    Under Section 13(6) of the Act, no judge can be disciplined unless the Attorney General, the government’s own lawyer, is physically present.

    By simply not showing up, the Executive holds a de facto veto over judicial accountability.

    The government’s defender decides whether the judges who rule against the government face discipline.

    You do not need a law degree to smell this rot.

    5. Criminalizing Transparency

    Instead of “open justice,” Parliament enacted Sections 17 and 23, making it a criminal offense to disclose Judicial Service Commission records without permission.

    They didn’t just fail to build the granary.

    They made it a crime to look inside and see what is being stolen.

    6. The “Non-Accountable” Ghost Tier

    By failing to define “Judicial Officer” properly, the law creates a phantom tier of Registrars, Deputy Registrars, Assistant Registrars, Chief Magistrates and Tribunal actors who exercise power over citizens but are legally insulated from oversight.

    They have the power of a judge.

    They have the accountability of a ghost.

    7. The Commission That Judges Itself

    The Judicial Service Commission receives complaints. Investigates them. Prosecutes them. Hears them. Decides them.

    Investigator. Prosecutor. Judge. Jury.

    All in one hut.

    We are warned about such concentration of power. But warnings without legislative correction are like a quarrel of drunkards at the village square.

    Parliament heard the warning.

    Parliament did nothing.

    AND WHEN THE VILLAGERS COMPLAINED…

    When the Uganda Law Society, noisy, stubborn, unapologetic  and unyielding, attempted to intervene?

    Injunctions.
    Uncause-listed petitions.
    Elections stalled.
    Appointments to the Judiciary proceeded like wedding ceremonies that will not wait for objections.

    The granary was gutted politely.

    “SHUT UP! YOU ARE GIVING US TRAUMA”

    At the 2026 New Law Year, Chief Justice Flavian Zeija warned that social media attacks on judges would not be tolerated. Online criticism, he said, causes trauma and will be crushed.

    Trauma from tweets?

    Try the trauma of five years on remand while your case gathers dust.
    Try the trauma of losing ancestral land because you cannot afford a surveyor.
    Try the trauma of watching a bribe walk free while your child rots in detention.

    The Uganda Law Society replied, correctly, that scrutiny is constitutional oxygen.

    But the Chief Justice’s instinct was not an accident.

    It was Okello Anyapo protesting demands for answers when Uncle Apur required answers for the granary that was depleted because he gave access without regulation. He permitted Anyapo to eat without brakes.

    Because the elders of Abongodero reminded Apur that the roots of accountability are bitter but the fruits are sweet!.

    [End of Episode 2]

  • EPISODE 1: THE LEGEND OF ABONGODERO

    EPISODE 1: THE LEGEND OF ABONGODERO

    Enen Legal World Logo


    There is a village called Abongodero. Abongodero means without a granary.

    The villagers named it after Mzee Zakayo’s ingenuity.

    Zakayo was clever. He never built a granary of his own. Instead, he raised cattle, fat bulls, glossy heifers. When hunger season approached, he would walk to a farmer whose granaries groaned with millet and offer a bull in exchange for rights to a certain number of storehouses. Enough to feed his household. Enough to impress the neighbors.

    The arrangement was sealed with a handshake. Everyone knew Zakayo’s cattle. Everyone knew he paid.

    The villagers admired him.

    “..Look at Zakayo!..”they whispered around evening fires. “He eats from granaries he never built!“

    They admired him so much that they named the village after his ingenuity.

    Abongodero.

    A photo of a granary.  Credit. Uganda Today: from article: A testament to tradition: the art of grain in Uganda’s homesteads by Chris Kato.

    But abundance has a wicked sense of humor.

    Zakayo’s children grew up knowing which families owed them food, which granaries bore their father’s mark. They inherited cattle, but not discipline. They inherited the right to eat, but not the wisdom to plant.

    One of them was Okello Anyapo.

    Anyapo. The lazy one.

    Okello inherited land so fertile it blushed when rain touched it. Black soil. Generous soil. Soil that would have yielded harvests his grandfather never imagined.

    But his hoe remained smooth. His fields grew weeds tall enough to vote.

    When hunger came, Okello blamed the sun for burning too bright. He blamed the rain for falling too hard. He blamed the ancestors for not speaking loudly enough. He blamed everyone except his idle hands.

    Across the stream lived Owera Apur.

    Apur the Farmer.

    He did not give speeches about productivity. He simply woke before the rooster finished its gossip. He dug. He planted. He weeded. He waited. His granary stood behind his hut like a quiet monument to repetition.

    He had no cattle to trade. He had only his back, his hands, and his patience.

    His granary stood full.

    Proof that the land was never the problem.

    Then hunger came like a leopard.

    The families who once owed Zakayo’s children had rebuilt their stores. They no longer needed cattle. They needed their millet for themselves.

    Okello’s inheritance could not be traded for what no one would sell.

    Hunger clawed him thin.

    He crossed the stream.

    “Uncle,” he said. “We are blood. Remember Father Zakayo? The village bears witness to his name.”

    In Lango, dignity comes before shame. Owera sighed. He looked at his granary—full from seasons of sweat.

    He opened the door.

    “Enter,”he said. “Take what you need.”

    Not ownership. Not supervision. Not rules.

    Just access.

    Okello entered empty and emerged round.

    He returned the next day. And the next. Soon he stopped pretending to farm at all.

    Why sweat when sacks yawn open?
    Why ration when no one counts?
    Why plant when the granary door never closes?

    By planting season, Owera opened his store to prepare for the rains.

    It echoed like a drum.

    Empty.

    When confronted, Okello adjusted his waistband and smiled.

    “You allowed me.“
    “There were no rules.“
    “I merely accessed.”

    And that is how Abongodero learned what their ancestors should have known:

    You never send a starving man to the granary.

    [End of Episode 1]

    Stay tuned and on the look out for Episode 2 of the legend of Abongodero. 

  • The Philosophy of Insults: When Truth Becomes Fire and Tests Legitimacy”Enen’s Letter to the Radical New Bar and Every Citizen Who Still Dares to Speak

    The Philosophy of Insults: When Truth Becomes Fire and Tests Legitimacy”Enen’s Letter to the Radical New Bar and Every Citizen Who Still Dares to Speak

    Logo: Enen Legal World


    🪶 The Fable

    Deep within the Mambo Forest, the animal kingdom lived in awe of a single, dazzling truth: their ruler, Twon Gweno the cock, wore a crown of living fire. His comb was a legend, a crest of such vibrant crimson that the elders swore it was a fragment of the first sun. His morning crow was a decree:

    “Bow to my glory, and you will be spared my flame.”

    And so, the animals bowed. Fear made them pious; fear made the cock sovereign with unquestioned loyalty, respect and cooperation from the rest of the animal kingdom in that forest. It was a classic case of natural-born legitimacy; never really earned.

    One evening, a crisis struck. Ichuli, the fox, the sole specialist in lighting the communal fire, was away. The wood was piled, but the spark was missing. The night, cold and predatory, loomed.

    Odyek Odyek, the hyena, a friend to truth and enemy of pretence, stepped forward.

    “The solution is simple,” she said. “We bow to Ladit Twon Gweno’s crown of fire. I will sprint to his home and borrow a spark.”

    She took a tuft of the driest spear grass, the Obia and went to the cock’s compound. She found him in a deep, unconscious slumber. Without waking him, she gently pressed the grass to his legendary crown, waiting for the catch, the sizzle, the proof.

    The grass rested on the crown, as inert as if it had been placed on a cool stone. The legendary fire was a phantom.


    Odyek Odyek, the hyena returned to the gathering and dropped the cold, unburnt grass in the centre of the circle. No words were needed. The lie they had bowed to for generations unravelled in that silent moment.

    Power, and unearned but coerced legitimacy unmasked, bled its authority into the silent night.


    ⚖️ The Lesson

    Borrowed fire must warm the hearts of the people. When it no longer does, the borrower is called to account.


    So it is with the courts. The robe, the gavel, the summons, and the warrant are instruments loaned by the people. Article 126(1) of the Constitution does not sing an ornament; it issues a command:

    Judicial power is derived from the people and shall be exercised by the Courts in their name and in accordance with the law and their values, norms, and aspirations.


    🧱 The Three Pillars of Legitimacy

    Legitimacy; the respect of the people and their cooperation with the courts, is the covenant at the heart of that loan. It demands three sacramental elements:

    Reflection: Judicial power must reflect the values and aspirations of the people; not the insatiable appetite of a sophisticated elite for luxury or high life.

    Truth: Courts must administer justice in accordance with law and truth, not convenience or midnight deals.

    The Judicial Oath: The solemn undertaking before God to do justice to all manner of people without fear, favour, ill will or affection is no actor’s prayer; it is a chain of duty.


    Strip away any of these, and what remains is a gowned pretender, eloquent and majestic, perhaps, but hollow: a cock whose crown no longer burns.


    The Evidence of Decay

    For those who have seen:

    • Appeal files missing thirty-eight pages.

    • A High Court hearing conducted not in a public courtroom but secretly in a posh hotel in which 15 minutes out of those proceedings were conducted in the absence of the opposite party and the whole process bashed by the Court of Appeal for want of a fair hearing and lack of judicial accountability and transparency and thereby further exacerbating the already slim public trust in the Court system entirely

    • A lower bench judicial officer bashed; “I don’t want to see this rubbish here, take it back where it came from” when they had sought guidance over files of thousands of remand detainees who had clocked mandatory bail, over 5 years where the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution state attorneys appeared neither willing nor ready to commit them for trial in the High Court.

    • The poorest peasants completely blocked from accessing justice because the lower courts have received directives not to register and dispose of customary land disputes unless a surveyor had first rendered a preliminary survey report; peasants who have never heard of, met heard about or hired the services of a professional called a surveyor. They have to sell a chunk of land  to afford a surveyor to conduct a preliminary survey and get their case registered.

    • A National Bar Association President’s liberty preserving Application for stay of execution of a manifestly void Contempt of Court ruling take close to 9 months without disposal.  




    These are not footnotes; they are flesh-and-blood indictments.
    The 1995 Constitution’s promise of a speedy and fair hearing has become hot air—Kikwangala, Kichupuli, Kawani.



    🗣️ The Test — The Philosophy of Insults. Withdrawing legitimacy and requiring that it be earned back by fidelity to its 3 pillars.

    “To insult without malice but with evidence is to perform constitutional maintenance and maintain pure legitimacy.”



    Hence the philosophy of insults. This is not the petty malice of a tavern quarrel. It is a civic stress-test, a pressure gauge for legitimacy.

    It is the public’s cry:

    “GIVE US WHAT YOU OWE US.”


    We lent you power; we demand accountability in return.

    A people that cannot insult and mock power has already lost moral authority. The right to insult and offend the powerful is not a luxury, it is the citizen’s tool for testing whether the borrowed flame is real.


    📜 The Proof — The Jurisprudence of Defiance

    “Leaders should grow hard skins to bear.”
    “Power must endure insult to remain clean.”

    Uganda: When the Constitution Answered Back

    This philosophy is not just wisdom; it is the settled weight of law. Consider Andrew Mwenda, whose words rattled the Republic:


    This philosophy is not just wisdom; it is the settled weight of law. Consider Andrew Mwenda, whose words rattled the Republic:
    “You see these African Presidents. This man went to University, why can’t he
    behave like an educated person? Why does he behave like a villager?’

    Museveni can never intimidate me. He can only intimidate himself ……… the
    President is becoming more of a coward and every day importing cars that are
    armor plated and bullet proof and you know moving in tanks and mambas, you
    know hiding with a mountain of soldiers surrounding him, he thinks that, that
    is security. That is not security. That is cowardice”

    Actually Museveni’s days are numbered if he goes on a collision course with
    me.”

    You mismanaged Garang’s Security. Are you saying it is Monitor that caused
    the death of Garang or it is your own mismanagement? Garang’s security was
    put in danger by our own Government putting him first of all on a junk
    helicopter, second at night, third passing through Imatong Hills where Kony
    is ?……Are you aware that your Government killed Garang?”

    I can never withdraw it. Police call them, I would say the Government of
    Uganda, out of incompetence led to or caused the death of Garang”

    When the state reached for iron law and charged him with sedition, the Constitutional Court answered with freedom, declaring that people from all backgrounds enjoy equal rights of expression, polite or not.

    “……Our people express their thoughts differently depending on the environment of their birth, upbringing and education.

    While a child brought up in an elite and God fearing society may know how to address an elder or leader politely, his counterpart brought up in a slum environment may make annoying and impolite comments, honestly believing that, that is how to express him/herself.

    All these different categories of people in our society enjoy equal rights under the Constitution and the law. And they have equal political power of one vote each.Then came the killer line that buried sedition:

    “……During elections voters make very annoying and character assassinating remarks and yet in most cases false, and yet no prosecutions are preferred against them. The reason is because they have a right to criticize their leaders rightly or wrongly. The Court concluded “Leaders should grow hard skins to bear.”
    A copy of the judgment can be found here:

    Mwenda and Another v Attorney General 2010 UGCC 9 (25 August 2010)Download



    Burkina Faso: The Continental Echo

    In Burkina Faso, journalist Issa Konaté was jailed for calling a prosecutor “a criminal in a robe.” In his Words:

    “…….The Prosecutor of Faso is the godfather of bandits. He is the sponsor, the organizer, the leader of a vast network of counterfeiters and traffickers that he protects with his power and status.”
    This is a prosecutor who does not prosecute crime, he commands it. He is not a guardian of order but a godfather of disorder
    While honest citizens sleep in fear, the chief lawman of our nation sits in his office, dividing the spoils of crime with police officers and bankers
    He is not a magistrate; he is a criminal in a robe. A saboteur of justice…….”



    The African Court answered with thunder and reason. Custodial sentences for speech are a bludgeon against Democracy:
    “The Court is of the view that the violations of laws of freedom of speech and the press cannot be sanctioned by custodial sentences, without going contrary to the provisions of Articles 9 and 19 of the Charter”

    The Court pronounced itself on the role of public figures under scrutiny.

    “There is no doubt that a prosecutor is a public figure; as such he is more exposed than an ordinary individual and is subject to many and more severe criticisms. Given that, a higher degree of tolerance is expected of him”

    A copy of the judgment can be found here:

    Konate vs Bukina FasoDownload


    From this we learn that “Power must endure insult to remain clean.”


    🪶 The Heritage; The Lango Grammar of Reproof

    This civic logic is not foreign to us. In Lango, the sharp tongue has long done the work of reform.

    • “Ole yin ibedo dako dako”; “…..you man, you behave womanly…”. It is not cruelty. It is shock therapy for duty and clarion call for the family patriarch to “man up” and live up to his responsibilities to his family, to lead firmly, provide for it and protect it.

    • “Lango mito alek”; “…..Lango deserves a pestle…” A reminder that discipline is coming unless reform comes first and that it intact comes usually after enforced discipline.


    • “Kwany Ka Point” The Gen Z’s and Millenials have similarly curved their own wisdom, “pick only the point”: As plain and simple as that. Pick only the point, filter it from the insult.


    • “Ikok Ugali idogi.”  “…..You will cry with Ugali in your mouth. …”


    In the old rite of passage, a young man’s two upper incisors were pulled, and boiling herbal Ugali was placed in his mouth to ease the agony. He cried through the very remedy meant to heal. Reform rarely feels like mercy.

    So when the citizen mocks the powerful, the intention is not cruelty; it is Ugali in the mouth of power: a necessary sting, a painful antidote.

    The insult becomes a civic anaesthetic; searing, brutally  humiliating, but designed to cleanse and restore legitimacy

    Reform rarely feels like mercy.
    So when the citizen insults and mocks the powerful, the intention is not cruelty. It is Ugali in the mouth of power: a necessary sting, a painful antidote.


    🔥 The Repair — The Calculus of Force

    Public outrage, properly aimed, creates four fields of pressure that make corruption intolerable:

    1. Professional Ostracization: When integrity collapses, the social scaffolding of a career falls with it.


    2. Erosion of Authority: A judge who loses public confidence loses jurisdictional muscle and may in fact receive fewer to zero allocations of files to handle or minimal chances to be chosen to sit on a panel in the case of hearings in courts that are manned by more than one Judicial Officer.


    3. Legal and Institutional Siege: Scandal catalyses petitions, litigation, and oversight that eat at illegitimacy.


    4. Political Abandonment: The appointing power prefers a scapegoat to a scandal, forcing a “voluntary” exit.

    From this, we learn that insults are not instruments of mob rule; they are the social physics of accountability.Yet outrage alone is not reform. The sting must translate into architecture: cooling-off periods for judges, transparent appointments, and independent oversight with teeth. Shame, the direct consequence of insult, reveals the rot; law must excise it.


    ⚔️ The Awakening — The Price of Truth

    “The hyena who taught the village to see.”

    For too long, the Uganda Law Society was a sleeping giant while the temple burned. But the dry grass is now burning in Masaka.
    When the President of the Bar , the hyena who taught the village to see, lives in exile for refusing to apologise for truth, his banishment becomes the ultimate test.

    Isaac K Ssemakadde (SC) President of Uganda Law Society. Credit: Uganda Law Society Website.



    📜 The Counsel; A Call to the Bench and the People

    This is not an invitation to vulgarity for its own sake.
    Insult as a civic weapon must be wielded with evidence, not rumour; with satire steeped in fact, not malice.

    To the Judges:

    Grow the hard skins the Constitutional Court commanded you to have. Wear patience as armour, not menace. Treat insult as a thermometer, not as treason or contempt.

    When a citizen insults, ask: does this insult point to truth? If yes, answer in reason, remedy the wrong, and let the nation watch you Act. If not, let the insult fall like a pebble. The dignity and legitimacy of the bench is earned by magnanimity and the stoic creed of the 3 pillars of legitimacy namely Reflection (of law, values, norms and aspirations); Truth and by abiding by the Judicial Oath. It is not enforced by fury, bullying or jaling dissent.

    This doctrine requires courage from all sides. The Bar must be relentlessly courageous and fearless in its insult and ridicule while exacting in its ethics.

    The public must be loud and literate, hurl insults but bring evidence. Lawyers must translate courage into petitions, not merely WhatsApp gossip and tweets. The Legislature must codify protections for speech against disproportionate criminal sanction and the Judiciary must redicscover the humility of the oath, the most important leg of judicial legitimacy; to do justice without fear, favour, ill will or affection. 

    To

    the citizens: Wield the pen. Make the insult precise devastatingly; threads that link to missing pages, memes that reveal truth.


    🌞 The Benediction & Epilogue

    Lock and Roseau taught and we learnt from the social contract doctrine that all power, judicial power inclusive, like the communal bull, is never owned. It is loaned to serve, not to feast upon. Judicial officers are, therefore, commissioners, agents of the people, not monarchs. The people are the principal. When the agent betrays, the principal must insult loudly in true reprimand.


    If those entrusted with it betray the trust, the people must remind them, sometimes with satire, sometimes with searing words, that borrowed fire must warm, not burn.

    This is neither an incitement to violence nor a call for insurrection. It is a call to civil carnage against corruption, ritualised, and peaceful.

    Let the insults be sharp, witty, and relentless, and let them dismantle rotten cartels of impunity.
    Turn every courtroom cover into a public syllabus: transparent reasons, readable judgments, accountability writ in footnotes and public records.
    Make the institutions bleed truth, not people.

    To end illiteracy in justice, let every citizen wield the pen.

    Let the hyenas come. Let the baraza be noisy.

    Let society test the crown every morning until the judges can point, with open hands and clear reasons, and say:

    “Here is the flame.”

    Until then, press the grass. Let the crown be tried in daylight.
    Let the fire prove itself true.

    ✍️ Dedication

    This blog is dedicated to all prisoners, present and past, of conscience, self-expression, and free speech: Male Mabirizi Kiwanuka, Ivan Samuel Sebadduka J, and Isaac K. Ssemakadde (SC), President of the Uganda Law Society, for executing a civic duty tragically confused with contempt of court.

    Contempt must be reserved for direct obstruction of justice, not as a cudgel to discipline ridicule.
    Imprisoning insult and mockery is to forget the nature and source of judicial power: the people’s consent.

    May the Good Lord bless and protect you all.
    And may we witness, in our lifetime, thick-skinned judicial officers who treat insults with nothing more than “a wry smile,”
    as aptly put twenty-five years ago by the eminent British jurist, Lord Justice Simon Brown.

    The author is a member of the inaugural Judiciary Affairs Committee of the Uganda Law Society.

    DISCLAIMER: This Blog is not a call for mob justice, chaos or disorder against our beloved holders of judicial power and other public power, it is brutal and defiant reminder that illegitimate conduct leads to a withdrawal of respect from the very owners of the power and attracts criminal and administrative sanctions, some as grave as removal from office. It is also to encourage the clean and disciplined judicial officers to continue upholding the consent of the people for them to administer justice by upholding the stoic pillars of legitimacy first mentioned in this Blog, and that with or without climbing the career ladder, God, the original designer of justice will be the ultimate one to reward their efforts both now and in the afterlife.

    This blog is not intended to be used as legal advice, and the author denies liability for use of the contents herein as legal advice. Readers are encouraged to consult a licensed Advocate to give them specialised advice and representation.

    For feedbacks and comments: ambrosenen@gmail.com. 

    References.

    For further reading or references. I consulted the following books.

    1. Politics as a Vocation (Politik als Beruf) by Max Weber

    2. Second Treatise of Government” by John Locke.

    3. The Social Contract” (Du contrat social) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

    4. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance” by James C. Scott.

    5. How to Do Things with Words” by J.L. Austin.

  • Dr. Solo vs The Feminist Furies: How One Tweet Cut Through Fibroids, Free Speech, and Misogyny

    Dr. Solo vs The Feminist Furies: How One Tweet Cut Through Fibroids, Free Speech, and Misogyny

    When Dr. Solomon Kimera logged onto Twitter that morning, stethoscope probably still warm from ward rounds, he didn’t just post—he detonated.

    One tweet about fibroids. Another swipe at tight pants and infertility. That was all it took.

    Credit: Dr. Solomon Kimera’s X(formerly Twitter) post on his handle.


    Boom.

    Searches for “fibroids” surged. Men quietly retired their skinny jeans. Women hit the group chats first, then stormed clinics, fists full of questions. The Uganda Medical Council blinked. Then it panicked.

    The backlash was volcanic. Petitions. Think-pieces. Firestorms of quote tweets yelling “misogyny!” and “strip his license!”

    But something strange was happening in the noise. Beneath the outrage, something cracked open.

    Because if Uganda starts policing how doctors speak—even when they sound like trolls—it’s not just Dr. Solo’s voice on the line. It’s the Constitution’s, too.

    Uganda’s Article 29(1)(a) wasn’t crafted to protect polished speeches in well-lit auditoriums. It’s there for the street fights. For the blunders. For the provocateurs.

    Back in 2004, Charles Onyango-Obbo v. Attorney General reminded us that true freedom of expression includes the right to shock, offend, and disturb.

    You can access a copy of that judgment here:

    charles-onyango-obbo-and-anor-v-attorney-general-2004-ugsc-1-10-february-201Download

    Not just the right to say things people agree with—but the right to spark discomfort.

    By that measure, Dr. Solo’s tweet wasn’t just protected—it was a public health campaign. It was a major public health intervention that no health ministry, world over has achieved with the highest budgetary  allocation and human personnel muscle can achieve.  It least, judging from history.

    Credit: Dr. Solomon Kimera alias Dr. Solo’s X (formerly Twitter) post, which indicted a massive success of his radical method of delivery health concerns.


    Still, legal protection doesn’t mean emotional immunity. Especially not for the women silently bleeding through extra pads at work, miscarrying dreams they never told anyone about, misdiagnosed by doctors who didn’t bother to look deeper.

    So yes, his tone was brutal. Clinical. Even smug. But for some, it was the first time fibroids had been acknowledged in public—not as a whisper, but as a national scream.

    Because before this, fibroids were the disease of euphemisms.

    Just “that pain.” Just “heavy flow.” Just something women dealt with.

    And then one loud, reckless doctor barged into the room with no filter and said what nobody else would.

    Ugly, yes. But effective.

    That kind of disruption—messy, jarring, necessary—is often where real change begins. Hell yes. Hippocrati’s oath binds doctor to treat you, save your life. That’s granted. The oath doesn’t bind the medics to decorum per se.

    True feminism doesn’t need everyone to speak gently. It needs people to speak honestly. And if we start silencing dissent because it doesn’t sound like a TED Talk, we’re just building a quieter version of the same old oppression.

    Doctors aren’t priests. They’re not politicians. They shouldn’t be expected to sugarcoat clinical truth just to stay “professional.”

    If polite pamphlets and decroum protocols worked, fibroids wouldn’t still be Uganda’s shadow epidemic—affecting nearly 20% women, many of them untreated, misdiagnosed, or dismissed.

    To verify these figures,  at least for the Ugandan context, read here

    This isn’t about defending one man’s ego. It’s about defending the right to say uncomfortable things that might save lives.

    So maybe instead of cancelling Dr. Solo, we do something harder.

    We ask: Why did this tweet land so hard? Why aren’t women being listened to unless someone shocks us into hearing them?

    Then we turn that chaos into something real:
    – Fund public education.
    – Train doctors to listen, not just lecture.
    – Create space where pain isn’t minimized by decency codes.

    We don’t need fewer voices. We need louder ones—with better tools, better data, and better empathy.

    One rogue tweet woke up a country. Imagine what a thousand coordinated voices could do.

    Maybe he was reckless. Maybe he was rude. But maybe, just maybe, he struck a nerve we’d been ignoring too long.

    Say what you want about the man. Just don’t pretend this didn’t matter.

    Fibroids are finally on the national radar. And it took a troll doctor with Twitter fingers to get us there.

    The author is a Rule of law enthusiast,  a practicing Advocate in Ugandan Courts of Judicature, a free speech Advocate and a member of the inaugural Judiciary Affairs Committee of the Uganda Law Society.

    Disclaimer: The author does not endorse or encourage misogyny and other forms of violation of women’s rights.  The views expressed here are purely to spark public discourse and public health awareness drives for the greater good of the whole society,  women inclusive.

    The Blog is for purely public discourse and is not intended to serve as a substitute for professional legal advice.

    Readers are strongly encouraged to seek the services of professional legal personal for situation specific advice. No liability is accepted for harm that arises from using information contained in this Blog as a substitute for professional legal advice.

    Do you have comments or feedback for us, please leave them in the comment section or reach out to us at: ambrosenen@gmail.com  | 256 789856805